


Unscripted

by domysticated



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 13:44:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 85,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3122375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domysticated/pseuds/domysticated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bella wanted nothing more than to run with the Cullens; Jasper couldn't wait to run away from his family. A simple story about growing up and finding what you didn't know you were looking for. AH, BellaxJasper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The summer she turned ten years old, Bella Swan came home from soccer practice one Saturday morning to find her parents sitting at the kitchen table silently and obviously waiting for her. The room was filled with sunshine, but the air was still and tense in a way that Bella had never quite experienced in her short life.

At first she welcomed the apparent peace, the unexpected absence of terse words or loud music to drown out loud, angry voices, but, bbut it was a short-lived relief that quickly died the moment she saw her parents' expressions: Renee's face was stony and drawn, her lips pursed tightly and her nose wrinkled with the effort it seemed to take her to focus on a single spot on the table in front of her. And as if that had not been enough, seeing Charlie immediately cemented the certainty that something momentous was taking place: Bella had never seen her father cry, and she was shocked to the core, terrified at what catastrophe might have caused him to weep so openly and so profusely. He was a different man right then, not her cheerful, steady father, but a weakened boy who seemed to struggle with grasping the basics of his surroundings and of her very presence. So fragile, so vulnerable, a stranger.

Her first reaction was purely physical: adrenaline shot through her and she could feel her legs tingle with the impulse to start moving, to get away, away, before it was too late, but her mother's hand and her kind, imploring eyes reached her before she could back out.

"Sit down, baby. Your daddy and I have something to tell you." Renee's voice was steady and low, unwavering despite the sob that now escaped her husband's chest. Her hand, however, shook noticeably and Bella felt a wave of nausea rise to her throat. She feared she might throw up, there and then.

She did as she was asked, though, and held on to her mother's hand as if it could reverse whatever nefarious mechanism had started to work in the engine of their lives. She turned to her father and her heart broke a little, irrevocably, when he wouldn't, or couldn't, meet her eyes.

"What is it, Mom? What's going on?" Her brain quickly conjured all sorts of monstrous scenarios involving disease, death, financial ruin or natural disasters: pushing back the mundane reality that should have been obvious to her long ago.

"Isabella," her mother began, using her full name for only the second time in her life; and then, as if to rectify that, "Baby..."

Renee swallowed hard, stopped talking and turned to Charlie, daring him to join in, to rise to the occasion, to lessen the blow by sharing the responsibility of delivering it.

Reluctantly, Charlie reached out for Bella's other hand, and it was like this, joined in a broken triangle, that Bella heard the words that would end her childhood and forever change the way she saw the world.

"Bella," she paused, gathering strength, "your Dad and I have decided to get divorced." Renee's voice broke on the last syllable, and the next words came out in a rushed whisper: "I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry."

"What? No... Why?" Bella's incredulity dulled her pain and delayed the inevitable heartbreak. It was shock, pure and simple: an almost overwhelming feeling that this was a bad dream, a misunderstanding; that it was all happening to someone else.

Charlie found his words then.

"It's nothing you did, darling... it's been a long time coming. Your Mom and I, we love you very much. More than anything, and nothing will ever change that. But we don't love each other anymore, not the way we should. It's time for us to go our separate ways. I'm sorry, Bells."

Bella said nothing.

Later on, in the lonely months that followed, she would lie awake in her bed at night wondering when it all started- when it all ended. Years later she would finally see that her parents had stopped being a unit a long, long time before that fateful Saturday morning; that they probably never were. She would come to realize that the way they'd never sit in the same room without her for more than a few minutes at a time, that the tears and muffled screams she'd hear through closed doors when they thought she was asleep, and above all the apathy and detachment that characterized their family life were all clues, laid open for her to see; dots just begging to be connected.

But at that time she had no way to understand that this, her life, her family, was what unhappiness looked like. She had nothing to compare her life to and thought it had all been normal, commonplace, fixable.

She hadn't even know it was broken.

Shock made her numb and so the next few hours were a blur. The copious tears that were shed that day in that sunny Arizona kitchen were not hers; the drawn explanations of logistics and changes that lay ahead for her evidence of meticulous planning that had likely taken place many months ago.

There was no more shouting, and no more bitter words, and Bella thought it strange that in this, in the process of their separation, her parents appeared to me more calm, more focused, and more in tune with one another than they'd been for a very long time.

Bella was stunned by how smooth and efficient the process of terminating a marriage, a family, could be; she was amazed at how quickly boxes were packed, cars were sold, surnames changed, new jobs sixteen hundred miles away were found and signed up to. Holiday and visitation plans were drawn and she learned that she would continue living in Arizona with her mother, that Charlie would come spend every Christmas and Easter in Phoenix (though not at the house, which was no longer  _ his _ house), and that, from now on, she would be spending her summer holidays with him in Washington State.

"Why Washington State? Why not California? Why not stay in Phoenix?" She asked her father, confused and overwhelmed by the distance he was willing to put between him and her. But Charlie had not responded, shaking his head gently, as if this was just a detail, unimportant, secondary; an obvious fact that she should have grasped all by herself.

Only three weeks later, and mere days before she was due to go back to school, they all drove together to the airport - the last time they would do so as a family. Bella waved goodbye to Charlie as he walked through security to board a plane that would take him all the way up north to the small city of Forks, where he would take up a new position as general surgeon in a small county hospital.

Renee and Bella drove back home that afternoon in silence and that night, Bella asked her mom if she could stay with her just that once. She fell asleep with a tight, hollow longing in her chest that she knew was there to stay.

o o o

That same summer, in Forks, Seth Cullen broke his arm as he was trying to climb a particularly slippery tree that his twin brother, Edward, had conquered without any hesitation or difficulty. The arm was reset by their father, Dr. Carlisle Cullen, and was only a minor hindrance to the rest of their holiday plans as Seth quickly learned to ride his bike, play soccer, and kick his brother's ass on the Xbox one-handedly. Nothing, not even a broken arm and an itchy, bulky cast could dent Seth's determination to live life to the fullest.

Edward practiced the piano every day, without gaining any sense of pleasure or satisfaction from the act. He felt an innate need to achieve perfection in everything he did, and ran scales again, and again, and again, until his fingering was flawless and there was no more room for improvement or criticism.

Their older brother, Jasper, learned to drive, thanks to the infinite patience of their mother, Esme, and her battered old manual-stick Volvo, the clutch of which bravely bore the brunt of his petulance. Freedom was only a step away for him, and he looked forward to the day he'd have his license and would finally be able to escape his dependence on his family and their increasingly alien rhythms and desires.

o o o

On the last day of the summer holidays Esme sat outside on the porch, weighed down with an unidentified sense of anguish and loss, and waited for her husband to come back from the hospital.

When Carlisle came home, he sat next to her. The night was cold but unusually dry and they could see the stars through the trees. He gratefully grabbed the mug of steaming tea she proffered.

"Things are never really going to be the same again, are they?" Esme reflected and placed her head on her husband's shoulder.

Carlisle turned to her and smiled.

"Why so melancholy tonight, my darling?"

"I don't know," Esme sighed. "Jasper all grown up, and the twins already lost in a world of their own." She paused, as visuals of Seth and Edward's intricate games and insistence on spending so much time locked in their room flitted through her mind. "I feel like this was the last summer of their real childhood, you know? From now on, it will all accelerate out of control. Out of my control."

Carlisle put his arm across Esme's shoulder and pulled her close to him. He kissed the top of her head and rubbed her arm in a soothing motion. He knew what she meant, even though he didn't share her somewhat dramatic vision of everything coming to an end. Perhaps because he was a doctor or more simply because he was an optimist, Carlisle believed in organic growth, in the ebb and flow of life, in gradual, harmonious changes, not in sudden, harsh, water-shedding breaks.

But he also recognized Esme's maudlin musings for what they were, a fleeting moment of sadness in her otherwise pragmatic and positive approach to life and parenting; no words were needed from him, just his silent presence and unspoken support.

As they sat together in the rapidly chilling night, Carlisle recalled the slumped shoulders and vacant stare of his newest coworker, Dr. Charlie Swan, who had arrived today from Arizona with dark circles under his eyes and the ghost indentation of a missing wedding ring on his left hand. He counted his blessings: the solid, real weight of the house behind him, his lovely, loving wife next to him, and his healthy sons upstairs in their rooms.

"Let's not worry now about a future we know nothing about, darling." He got up and gently pulled her to her feet. "Come on, let's go to bed."

  
  


 


	2. Chapter 2

The summer she turned eleven, Bella boarded a plane at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport bound for Port Angeles via Seattle, for the first of her yearly summer visits to her father. It was a long trip to an unknown destination and she was on edge the whole time. The "Unaccompanied Minor" badge that hung from her neck simultaneously made her feel protected and incredibly exposed - Renee's warnings about not straying from the stewardesses for even one second resonating loudly in her ears as she suspiciously eyed the other passengers.

When she finally reached the tiny airport she was exhausted, and as tense as a guitar string. She was looking forward to seeing her dad, but at the same time she felt anxious and ill-prepared to spend time with him alone on unfamiliar turf. Sure, they spoke often on the phone and regularly exchanged emails and text messages - and of course there had been Christmas and Easter, and that surprise weekend in California when her mother had awkwardly handed her over to Charlie in the lobby of a plush hotel, only to check herself in to the same establishment and spend the next thirty-six hours pretending she wasn't there. But those occasions had always been, in one way or another, reenactments of the past, conducted by and large, according to a script that had been developed over the years: the same restaurant, the same outings, the same trips to the same mall.

Washington, on the other hand, was an unknown.

As she retrieved her bag and walked out into the airport waiting area, an irritable ground staff employee escorted her right into the arms of her father.

Charlie was so visibly happy to see her it broke her heart a little bit, knowing how conflicted she felt about being there; and the dark, cloud-lined sky did nothing to appease the sense of foreboding that was threatening to overwhelm her. Despite her father's smile and his strong, warm hug, despite the rush of pleasure of smelling his almost forgotten scent—childhood, and bedtime stories, and hiding in his closet- despite all the excitement she'd felt when preparing for the trip, Bella couldn't help but feel skittish, a deadly combination of fatigue and unclear expectations.

Sure enough, as soon as they got into the car - which she noted was a small, sleek sports model, so different from the type of cars they'd had as a family - it started raining: suddenly and violently, so hard it was enough to scare her. Bella zipped her hoodie all the way up to her neck and shivered.

"It's cold, eh?" Charlie chuckled, starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it in no time. The rain, not so much, but I bought you some really good boots, so you'll be fine." Charlie talked fast, excitedly, squeezing in information and questions at record speed, stealing nervous glances at his inexplicably grumpy daughter. "How was your flight? Are you tired? Hungry? Wanna stop for something on the way?"

Bella smiled at her dad- he was still the same, still so willing to please and so determined to find a way to make everything right; still embarrassingly eager. Her apprehension lifted somewhat, and she thought perhaps this summer would not be so bad after all.

"No, I'm good. Let's just go straight home, okay? I'm curious to see it!"

And so they drove on, Charlie firing off questions in rapid succession about school and swimming and friends, and letting her know all the things he'd planned for them over the coming weeks. Fishing and hiking figured prominently in his plans, and Bella wondered when her father had become so outdoorsy.

As Charlie continued to talk, she looked outside, taking in the thick vegetation that seemed to cover everything in sight. The colors were so vibrant, so violent, green trees and gray skies, so different from the muted, burnt palette she was used to: everything seemed so soft, so changing, and so alive.

"So, yeah, I'm going to have to go to work during the day, but I found this camp for you to go to." Charlie paused for effect. "It should be fun, you can check it out tomorrow. Dr Cullen - he's another doctor at the hospital here, really smart guy - says his boys will be going, and they're the same age as you; they're a nice family, and live just down the road from me. So Esme - that's Carlisle's wife - could give you a lift together with the twins."

_ All figured out, _ thought Bella, as she listened to her father proudly displaying his excellent organizational skills—something he'd never had to worry about while he still lived with them, for life management had been Renee's domain. She noticed that the Cullens featured prominently in his plans, and she wondered why that was.

Mention of the "twins" made her slightly nervous, conscious of the fact that there seemed to be some kind of expectation that they would become best friends, or something. Bella rolled her eyes; she wasn't shy, exactly, but she had a hard time getting close to people; although, if pushed, she would have said she'd rather be hanging out with boys than girls, and she was relieved to find out that at least there were no Cullen girls she was supposed to befriend. No makeup or slumber parties or pop singers that made her cringe.

That night she fell asleep in a strange room that Charlie had gone out of his way to decorate in purples and browns - her favorite colors - and dreamed confusing, indistinct dreams of the Cullens: many and then few, large and then small, just within her reach and then suddenly impossible to grasp.

o o o

The next day, Bella finally got to meet the twins: Edward and Seth. They showed up at ten on the dot, as promised, in a family Volvo driven by their mother Esme - Bella liked her instantly, taken with her messy ponytail with too many grays showing, her well-washed jeans and unfashionable hiking boots, but especially with her humorous, kind eyes, and the ease with which she welcomed her into her car and her life.

"Say hi to Bella, boys!" she commanded, and from the backseats came a laugh and a growl and then two reluctant "Hi to Bella, boys!" and then loud giggling. Bella immediately wanted in. She wanted in, in the giggles and the growling and the easy laughter; in the old battered car; in Esme's generous hugs.

At first, the twins regarded her with distrust, for she was, after all,  _ a girl _ and as such not to be trusted. They were all set to abandon her and move on, if it hadn't been for the fact that, of all the kids who attended the "Summer on Wheels" camp, she was the only one who seemed to be absolutely game for any amount of mud and endurance the organizers had planned. After an initial moment of surprise - Charlie had neglected to tell her he'd signed her up to a mountain biking camp - Bella just got on a bike and pushed on through wet and steep trails, quickly earning herself a place in the advanced group and the heartfelt admiration of the Cullen twins.

o o o

When Esme picked them up that first evening, covered in mud and grinning from ear to ear, she realized at once that Bella Swan would be a feature of their lives for the foreseeable future: the twins, normally so self-contained and so absorbed with one another, seemed to gravitate towards her, observing her movements carefully and taking their cues from her. Easygoing yet somewhat guarded, Bella exuded a strangely mature confidence, and yet her eyes were large and open, constantly animated by a stream of emotions and incapable of concealing her childish enthusiasm for all the novelties around her.

Esme was right: Bella and the twins became inseparable. Charlie got her a bike of her own on that first Saturday, and watched, perplexed and vaguely proud, his daughter ride out into the rain towards the Cullen house as soon as they got home from the shop.

That evening, Esme called him around six pm:

"Charlie? Hi. It's Esme Cullen. Listen, why don't you come over for dinner? The boys want Bella to stay and, of course, we'd be delighted to have you too! Oh and Charlie? Bring some spare clothes for her, will you?"

When Charlie arrived half an hour later he found Bella and the two younger Cullen boys sitting outside on the steps, clothes muddy and wet, grinning like idiots at something the smaller one - the one with the dark hair and the quick, witty eyes - was recounting excitedly.

"Dad!" screamed Bella as she saw him approach. "Dad, you have to see where we went today! It's amazing! It's like... this waterfall! It's so cool!"

Charlie Swan had not seen his daughter so animated and so carefree in a long time- and over the coming weeks he witnessed, with a mix of curiosity, affection, and a hint of jealousy, how seamlessly she became integrated with the Cullens.

With her short hair and determined, frowny face, she seemed to give as good as she got and he had to beg her to take it easy, to be careful when she was out and about, riding her bike with the boys down the narrow country lanes, climbing trees in the garden or spending entire afternoons cooped up in their basement watching gory movies and playing Xbox.

Here, in the cold and wet Washington weather, he saw her freer than she'd ever been - away from expectations and the loving but suffocating presence of her mother. And he let her be - he let her be wild, and tomboyish; he let her become one with the twins. Charlie had spent long sleepless nights wondering whether he'd lost his daughter for good, doubting that he had anything left to offer her; but her realized, with a clarity that startled him, that  _ this _ was what he could give her - this freedom, this wildness. Forks, he thought, would be that place for her, and the biggest gift he could give her was to let her enjoy it, on her terms.

Esme's calls came more and more often and Charlie was somewhat embarrassed to be spending so many dinners at the Cullen table - but Carlisle was a good man, fast becoming a real friend; and Esme was so welcoming, so warm, and so easygoing in her messy kitchen and plain clothes, and everything about this set-up felt so easy and so right that he soon stopped worrying about it, thinking that one day, in one way or another, he would repay the favor.

The only thing that didn't quite work, for Charlie, in this idyllic picture - among the raucous laughter and silly jokes of the twins, and Bella's contented face, and Carlisle and Esme's beautiful and uncomplicated relationship - was their elder son.

Jasper - that was his name, he'd learned from Bella - was a moody and taciturn seventeen year old, who had inherited from his father his striking good looks- tall, broad shoulders, blue eyes, and blonde hair- but none of his affable and warm ways. In fact, he came in just before dinner, sat down without a word, and barely spared a look for his younger brothers or parents, let alone their guests. Whenever Esme tried to engage him in conversation he answered monosyllabically. Charlie saw the resigned looks his parents exchanged. "Teenagers," mouthed Carlisle in response to Charlie's worried look; and it said a lot about this family that they could deal so calmly with his bad moods and wish for isolation.

"I swear, Charlie," Carlisle complained one day at work, over a coffee break. "Once they hit sixteen or seventeen, it's like they're not even human anymore. I mean Jasper… where to start?" Carlisle shook his head with a hint of exasperation. "He's a good boy, don't get me wrong, doing really well in school, no drugs or trouble, but, honestly, it's like living with a vampire. Sleeps all day, gets up at three pm, goes off God knows where in his car, and only checks in for food. I'm telling you, enjoy them while they're young!"

o o o

Jasper sometimes felt as though he was an alien, supernatural, other, different. His thoughts, which had always been crystal clear and methodical, escaped in the most random direction without his even realizing. His moods were volatile and unpredictable, and the onset of violent emotions, each one newer and rawer than the one before, left him vulnerable and spent. His body vibrated and hummed with a new, unfocused energy: a pull towards the outside, towards the unknown, that seemed to consume him from within.

Restless, disconnected, Jasper wanted out. He wanted out of the stifling circle of love his parents had conjured; out of the exuberant, childish vitality of his brothers that seemed to dominate the family dynamics; out of his father's accepting ways and his quiet, unspoken expectations; out of his mother's dedication to all things practical and mundane, of her loyalty to the same meals and even the same laundry detergent, year after year after year.

He couldn't wait for his life to start. One more year. One more year ,and then college. Freedom.

Until then, though, Jasper took long, meandering drives down the coast, stopped at La Push, sat locked in his car listening to music, and planned a future that, finally, seemed just within his grasp.

  
  


 


	3. Chapter 3

The summer she turned twelve, Bella couldn't wait to get away from Phoenix. Things with Renee had been difficult for the last couple of months: a progressively strained relationship increasingly dominated by long silences, punctuated by sudden outbursts of irrational anger and by occasional moments of heartbreakingly intense closeness. This rollercoaster had left Bella restless, in desperate need of quiet and escape, and she was ready and eager to get away from her mother.

Renee, for her part, had reluctantly come to accept that she didn't understand her daughter. She had thought, perhaps naively, that she could simply look within herself to find the key to interpret Bella- that all she needed was to recall the memories and emotions of her own childhood and adolescence and then simply project them onto her. But the truth, she now realized, was that this determined, innately physical girl who shared half her DNA was a complete mystery.

While Renee had always been quiet, with a tendency to laziness and apathy, and had shied away from physical activity and competition all her life, Bella threw herself into her many pursuits with an enthusiasm and a sense of purpose that made no sense to her mother. Bella was always brimming with energy, vibrating with the need to be constantly doing things, and Renee was exhausted - exhausted by the constant demands, the intensity, the questions that could not and would not go unanswered, by the ferrying back and forth from soccer to guitar to track practice. She did it, of course, because this is what mothers do, but it wasn't without effort, and it wasn't always with grace. And while she considered herself to be a good parent, she felt ill equipped to play the more paternal role that Bella seemed to crave so desperately. The fact that in all probability Charlie was equally inadequate in that respect was something she uncomfortably pushed back to the recesses of her conscience.

When Bella finally boarded the plane that would take her to her father for the next six weeks, Renee felt immensely relieved, then immensely guilty for feeling relieved.

o o o

Any fears Bella might have harbored that the previous summer had been a fluke, and that the twins would no longer want to hang out with her, were quickly dispelled: the doorbell rang within an hour of her arrival in Forks.

"I bet it's for you, Bella." Charlie said as she ran to the door. "Those Cullen boys haven been waiting for you for days."

And, sure enough, there they were. Bella immediately noticed the differences: they were both taller than they'd been the previous year; Edward's hair was longer and somewhat lighter, his braces gone; Seth's shoulders were broader and he sported a brand new scar on his right eyebrow. Their clothes had also changed -baggy pants and t-shirts with logos she'd seen on television- but their smiles still betrayed the eager and shameless enthusiasm of childhood, not the studied indifference of impending adolescence.

"Can Bella come for a ride?" they asked in unison, and Charlie tried to assert his authority, since it was seven p.m. and Bella had been travelling all day, but reasoning with them was pointless, and "no" was not a word he thought he could yield with finality, not when his daughter was jumping up and down in front of him and scrunching her face in a supplicating frown that made her look about six years old.

"Please, please, please, daddy!"

So off he waved them, exacting a promise they'd be back before eight and that they wouldn't go far, not near the woods, not away from the main road, but before he could finish Bella had pulled on her special "Forks boots" and her raincoat and was tearing down the stairs towards the garage to grab her bike and race Edward and Seth down the path.

Charlie watched their rapidly disappearing silhouettes, shook his head, and smiled.

o o o

That summer Esme convinced Charlie that there was no need for him to plan a special daytime activity for Bella and that it really was okay for her to spend all her time at their house.

"Truly, Charlie, it will be a pleasure for us. She'll hopefully talk some sense into the boys, avoid them running off a cliff or something."

Charlie had finally relented after Esme had agreed to a somewhat uneven bargain - he would take the kids fishing a few weekends, if the weather was good and they could get up early enough.

Esme hadn't been lying: having Bella around was a joy, and seeing her boys so engrossed in her, so delighted to share her company, was a pleasure all its own. She was convinced, without being able to articulate her reasons fully, that her presence in their lives was a  _ good _ thing, and that Bella was truly special. To everyone else she may have seemed like a plain, unremarkable tomboy of little grace and distinctiveness, who asked questions too often and smiled too seldom. But Esme could see past her bravado and her abrupt ways to her gentle but fiercely guarded soul and to her loyal heart that she opened only judiciously to those who truly deserved it.

She had no doubt that, of that unlikely trio, Bella was the leader, despite being the smallest, the youngest, and the least physically strong.

Esme had few hesitations when it came to raising her kids. She knew she granted her sons a freedom that most other parents thought ill-advised, but she was convinced that they'd look out for each other, and eventually for themselves, and no real harm would really ever come to them other than a few stitches or a broken limb - all things that her husband could easily fix. The days of shattered hearts and wounded souls, so much harder to soothe and restore, were still to come— and she looked at her older son, so lost in a mist of confused desires and conflicting emotions, wishing above all that she could find a way to make growing up less painful for him.

Still, she hadn't missed the not-so-subtle disapproval that Mrs. Cope at the library had expressed when commenting on the wisdom of letting that _ girl _ hang out with her boys all the time; and although she had smiled sweetly, pretending not to understand her point, she was still a little shocked that the local gossipmongers found fuel in the goings-on of twelve year olds.  _ Small town living at its best, _ she thought sadly as she drove home.

Sure, she had to clean up her fair share of scraped knees and ice a good number of nasty bruises, but when she heard the animated chatter that came from the basement where the twins and Bella were engaged in interminable games of Fable she knew all was right in their world She eavesdropped once or twice, just to make sure: but it was always the same, talk of something scary and outlandish, re-enactments of some dubious comedy or other, or excited discussion about which popular teenage icon was lamer.

o o o

Edward and Seth, so used to being one half of a unit, had no trouble becoming one third of a different, larger, more interesting one, and sometimes marveled at the fact that Bella hadn't always been there, in Forks, and that she wouldn't always be sitting at their kitchen table at lunchtime, discreetly scraping cheese out of her sandwiches. Seth even conjured a fanciful notion of Bella being their long lost sister, but Edward shut him up laughing, "You dork!"

Bella occasionally let herself be seduced by this possibility. The freedom she enjoyed here was riveting, the lack of boundaries intoxicating. In Phoenix she was always between four walls - home to car to school to car to mall to car to home - never far enough from other people to be truly alone, and that included her mother, who hovered closely, worried about everything from food to friends to clothes to schedules. In Forks, on the other hand, she was outdoors most of the time, cool - moist air on her face, the sounds of nature never far away - and in between Charlie's distracted parenting and Esme's relaxed supervision, she was left to her own devices more often than not. She could experiment with being herself.

It was not really up to her to choose though. She knew that neither of her parents was ready or willing to fight a custody battle; and she thought it wise not to kick start something she had no control over.

o o o

Charlie sometimes had to work late into the night, if an emergency came in, or the Hospital was short-staffed: being the most recent recruit meant that, despite his good qualifications and respectable career, he still had to prove himself and his dedication in the eyes of his superiors.

On such occasions he'd come to an arrangement with a local girl, Leah Clearwater, who was trying to piece together as much money as possible to see her through her first year of college and was only too glad of the babysitting money. Leah was smart and hardworking, with a quick tongue and a low, gravel-filled laugh that made Bella fear her even as she was fascinated. Leah wore short skirts and knee-high boots, and a knitted cap over long brown hair: to Bella she seemed the height of sophistication and cool, and she hoped, one day, to be just like her. At night, she secretly practiced Leah's insouciant scowl in front of the mirror.

Most evenings with Leah were spent eating pizza and watching movies, then observing her sketch her plans for the perfect tattoo in her tiny black notebook; and usually, exhausted by a day of physical pursuits, Bella went to bed early and fell asleep almost instantly.

But on that midsummer night, perhaps because of the unusual heat, or perhaps because of the full moon, she tossed and turned in her bed for what felt like hours, growing too hot and then too cold until finally she couldn't take it anymore and decided to go down for a glass of milk and something to eat.

The house was dark and as she entered the living room she could see that the TV was still on, casting long, bluish lights on the rest of the room. At first, she couldn't make out anyone else and she wondered whether Leah had fallen asleep; but then, taking a step closer, she saw the tangle of bodies and limbs on the sofa, Leah on her back with her skirt around her waist and her blouse opened while another body pinned her down, moving in a steady dance with her. With a shocked gasp, Bella realized that she was witnessing a live instance of  _ making out _ : the other body clearly belonging to a boy, a boy whose tongue was now in Leah's mouth and whose hand was in her panties, a boy whose hips were thrusting hard and rhythmically as he grunted softly. Leah moaned, her back arching off the sofa, and Bella blushed in the dark - desperate to look away, yet unable to move.

It was only when Leah reached for the boy's belt and started tugging at it that Bella, terrified of what she might see next, tried to tiptoe backwards, aiming to somehow make it up the stairs unnoticed. But in the dark she tripped against a corner table, the noise deafening in the suddenly quiet room.

The figures on the sofa froze. Leah immediately turned around, her eyes hooded and unfocused at first, then suddenly huge with the shock of understanding. She hid her face from Bella and pushed the boy away from her, smoothing her skirt down, hastily buttoning up her blouse, and tried to get to her feet as quickly as possible.  _ He _ took his time, though, sitting back against the back of the sofa, his long legs extended before him, running a hand through his blonde hair, as if this was simply a minor inconvenience, a commonplace occurrence. When he finally turned around to look at her, Bella was shocked to discover that it was none other than Jasper Cullen.

He held her gaze for a long moment, then got up slowly and walked to the kitchen door as it if was the most natural thing in the world to be there in the first place and to leave just like that. He picked up his car keys from the kitchen counter and stepped out into the night.

"See ya, Leah," he said, without glancing back, pulling the door behind him loudly, nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of.

Leah sighed, then let herself fall back down onto the sofa; she turned off the TV and switched on a table lamp.

"Bella." She with a firm, low, voice. "Bella, you know you can't tell Charlie, right?"

Bella just shrugged and refused to make eye contact. The thought of telling Charlie had not even crossed her mind until then; she was still trying to process what she had just witnessed.

"You hear me? He can't find out okay? Okay?" There was an edge of panic in Leah's hoarse voice, as she nervously combed her hair back into place.

"Okay," Bella finally said, sensing her vulnerability, still unsure how to proceed, "but..."

"But what?"

Bella crossed her arms and looked defiantly at the older girl.

"But in return, I want you to tell me exactly what you were doing with Jasper Cullen."

"What? We weren't doing anything!"

"Yeah, right."

Bella might have been naive about the ways of the world, but she was no fool, and she had questions; lots of questions, many of which she hadn't had just half an hour before, but which were now at the forefront of her mind. She sensed her unique opportunity to gain, if not first hand knowledge, as close to it as she was going to get anytime soon. She had the upper hand, and she knew it.

"Come on... you're just a kid. Just... forget what you saw, okay?" Leah tried to minimize, forcing a small laugh, but Bella was having none of it.

"I'm twelve years old. I know about sex. Just... just tell me exactly what you were doing and how it felt. Or else I'll tell Charlie."

And so it was that, in return for her silence, Bella Swan learned all about third base and just how amazing it could feel at the hands of someone like Jasper Cullen.

o o o

For the rest of the summer Leah was on her best behavior, and Jasper smirked every time he saw Bella - which was often, since she was always at his house. He never called Leah back after that incident, and never stopped to ask himself why. Done, gone, forgotten.

Bella kept her promise, and never told Charlie. Once the summer were over, though, she exacted a promise of her own and made sure that the following year, there would be no more babysitters for her.

On the day she left, they stopped at the Cullens' on their way to the airport; Edward and Seth said goodbye awkwardly, subdued and unusually serious; Esme and Carlisle hugged her tight and told her they were going to miss her. Bella ran out of the house, Charlie honking for her to hurry up, and came face to face with Jasper; he barely stopped, but he smiled- for the first time ever, thought Bella- then said, in a low voice, "Take care, Bella."

o o o

That September, Jasper went to college, full of trepidation and anticipation. Esme and Carlisle insisted on seeing him into his dorm room and hovered for longer than strictly necessary. They left with a hug, many words of advice they knew would go unheeded, and a few tears they unsuccessfully tried to hide from him.

Once they were gone and the door was closed, Jasper opened his window to let the cool ocean breeze in. Then he lay on his new bed, stripped bare of any linen, and smiled at the ceiling.

  
  


 


	4. Chapter 4

The summer she turned thirteen Bella came late to Forks, having had to wait to leave until after a fourth of July party her mother insisted she attend. Renee had a new boyfriend who was some kind of hot shot local politician and it was imperative that everyone should see just how presentable, lovely, and accomplished Bella was - since a presentable, lovely, and accomplished child made her status as a divorcee almost acceptable in the eyes of the Dwyer clan.

So Bella put on the expensive skirt and blouse her mother had bought her, brushed her hair carefully, and solemnly swore she would smile all evening and not frown or chew her nails, not even once. As luck would have it her swimming coach was a good friend of Phil Dwyer, and had the good grace of extolling her virtues as a talented swimmer and model student - the former absolutely true, the latter a somewhat liberal interpretation of reality - to all who would listen. Bella blushed at all the right people, Renee beamed, and the evening was deemed a success.

When Renee took Bella to the airport the next day, she hugged her a bit harder than usual.

"Thank you, baby. You were wonderful. I love you so," and Bella was happy to see her mother so content and full of hope, even though she couldn't fully prevent her happiness from being tinged with a slight bitterness at what still felt like a betrayal of her father.

o o o

"Hey, Bella Boo. Nice flight?"

Charlie's smile was still there, still dimpled, still honest- but his eyes didn't sparkle like they usually did and his hug was a little limp round her shoulders. He looked sad, and so much older than Bella remembered him.

Alarmed, she set out to collect clues on the reasons behind his behavior, but could find no immediate evidence in the house - still tidy, still somewhat empty - when she finally got there. Her dad still looked the same, still talked the same, and still ruffled her hair to drive her crazy. He was still the same, yet somehow more tired, more distant: it took him a beat too long to answer her questions, and his jokes felt rehearsed and fell uncharacteristically flat.

She was impatient to go out and see Seth and Edward - they had called Charlie's cell within minutes of them getting in the car - but she stayed home that night, had dinner with her dad, watched TV and made him laugh as she teased him for his new found love of sports and his sudden North Western allegiances.

"The Mariners dad? Really? What next, the Sonics? Oh, wait - even they've flounced Seattle!"

Charlie chuckled and pulled her into a hug that finally felt a little genuine.

"C'mon, Bella. Go call those Cullen boys. I bet they're dying to hear from you."

Bella hesitated.

"They're okay, dad. It's not like we speak all the time anyway, you know?" She tried to play it cool, not wanting to show her dad just how badly she wanted to get away.

"Oh Bella, trust me, I know. I know all about Facebook and email and text messages." Bella blushed at her father's knowledge. She guessed he and Carlisle talked about more than just fishing. "I also know that they've been riding their bikes down here every day just in case you'd changed your plans and had suddenly showed up early. So please, go make that call and put them out of their misery."

She rolled her eyes but got up anyway, grabbing the cordless on her way to her room. Spread out on her purple comforter -  _ how to tell Charlie that she was so over purple? _ \- she dialed the familiar number. She grinned from ear to ear when she heard Edward's deeper, but still warm voice, and Seth's excited yelling behind him. She promised she'd be there tomorrow morning at ten, and fell asleep relieved and happy.

o o o

Charlie stopped by her room on his way to bed. He opened her door softly, feeling unsure whether that was still okay or whether he should start to be more wary of his daughter's privacy, yet compelled to check on her as he used to do when she was a toddler; he took in her sleeping form and stood still, observing her for a long time, grateful for her peace and serenity, and secretly envious of it.

o o o

Bella and the twins fell back easily into their companionship. Bella's enthusiasm for the outdoors, her love of rain, and mud, and greenery, which they could not really comprehend as it was all they knew, was nonetheless contagious and they let themselves be led by her on ever more adventurous hikes and rides.

That summer they added music to the mix of bike riding, endless card games, and Playstation. Carlisle had bought Edward a guitar, and Bella, while not a very musical person, was only too happy to show him the basics she'd picked up during her now abandoned weekly afterschool lessons. It didn't take long for Edward to learn and soon he was obsessed with it in a way that he had never been with the piano, despite a proficiency closely bordering on virtuosity. He carried the instrument everywhere he went, strapped to his back whenever he walked or rode anywhere; he played in his room, in the basement, out in the garden; he played for his siblings and his parents, and he played for Bella.

But most of all, he played for himself, in a little-known meadow he had discovered earlier in the year one day when Seth was home with the flu. He kept his newfound craving for solitude a secret, surprised and somewhat ashamed of this sudden need to be by himself. He was still  _ with _ Bella and Seth, still one third of the whole, but he relished the desire to be apart, drawn into a world that was as mysterious and fascinating to him as it was non-existent to his two companions.

o o o

Charlie was working harder than usual; he was gone a lot and dog tired the rest of the time. Although it was not something he would ever share with his daughter, he'd had trouble at work the previous winter, a falling out with the Chief of Staff over dealings with a pharmaceutical rep, which had been smoothed over only thanks to Carlisle's intervention. Charlie had kept his job, but the payback had been the need to prove himself all over again, to put in long hours and cover unsociable shifts. He did his best to be there for his daughter over the few weeks she was there, but there was no hiding his exhaustion.

And so it was that, when Esme called him one Thursday night at the end of July with an unexpected proposal, he found it almost impossible to refuse.

"Charlie, hey." Her voice was smooth and warm, and he was surprised once again by just how easy it was to like Esme. "Long time no speak, how are you?"

"Hey Esme, I'm good. Same old, same old... Bella not giving you too much trouble, is she?"

He couldn't immediately place the reason for her unusually guarded tone, and so naturally feared the worst.

"Oh, Charlie, Bella is wonderful! You know we love her so much, and she's no trouble at all." Esme paused for just a second. "None at all, really."

"Well, I'm glad... and thanks, Esme. It means a lot to me that you are so welcoming, and that she and your boys are so close." Not for the first time, Charlie wondered whether Bella was so attracted to the Cullens because of her need for normality and for family life, and the pain and guilt of his failed marriage reared its head. "But what's up?"

Esme hesitated - she was friendly with Charlie, and she hadn't lied about loving Bella, but still, she felt the request she was about to make would surprise him and she wasn't sure he would accept.

"So Charlie, listen. We're going on a camping trip next week - for a few days, down in Oregon. We were wondering if Bella would like to come with us."

The line went silent for a long moment, and Esme worried she'd overstepped her mark.

"I mean, Charlie, I get that this is your time with her, trust me," her voice picked up in intensity and urgency, "so perhaps I shouldn't have asked - but the boys would love her to come, you know? They have such an amazing time together - and Carlisle and I, too, of course - we'd take excellent care of her."

"Well, I don't know." Charlie faltered, somewhat embarrassed, unsure of what he should say. He felt vaguely ridiculous about having to have this conversation, out of his depth somehow. "I mean, I know they're kids and they're friends and of course I trust you and Carlisle but..." He let the sentence trail, hoping Esme would pick up the clues so he wouldn't have to spell out exactly what his concerns were.

Thankfully, Esme was quick to understand.

"Oh, yes, I understand completely, but let me reassure you! Jasper is coming too - with his girlfriend, Alice, and of course Bella would be sharing a tent with her." Esme rushed through this speech and then let out an embarrassed little laugh. "I mean, gosh, all those boys!"

Charlie sighed.

"Okay, well, listen, I need to think about it, speak with Bella's mom I guess. But thanks. I mean, it's really generous of you." Once more, Charlie hesitated. "And Esme, are you  _ sure _ ?"

Esme was sure, and Carlisle was sure, and told him as much the next day at work. As for Charlie, he was really not so sure, but he talked to Bella, who implored him to let her go, and he hadn't the heart to say no. And then the thought of being able to sleep all day on Sunday and finally catch up on all those late nights sprung into his head, and so he finally called Renee to get the final seal of approval.

Bella left for Oregon in the Cullens' new and upgraded Volvo, squeezed between Edward and Seth in the backseat, and for the next eight hours they watched DVDs, slept and shared their iPod playlists.

o o o

They got to the resort late in the afternoon, the sun setting over the lake, and within minutes the three of them had rushed to the shore and dived in, racing one another to the diving platform, a race that Bella managed to win easily much to the dismay and humiliation of her friends. She'd been training progressively harder over the past year, her aptitude and determination earning her a place on the junior swim team.

They lay on the platform, panting and exhausted.

"I swear Bella, you cheated!" This was Seth's way of dealing with defeat; Edward just stared at her, unsure how to decipher the strange way Bella made him feel - small, and young, and somehow awed.

They jumped off the platform over and over again, taking turns. "Come on, Bella! Jump! Come on! I'm freezing here" - until they could no longer muster the energy to invent new twists and new names for their goofy dives.

Afterwards, they watched the sun set and waited until they saw Esme on the shore and heard her calling their names, urging them back. They shivered as their bodies slid into the chilly water, swimming back lazily, not racing this time, and driving Esme frantic with irritation and a touch of worry.

"C'mon guys! It's getting dark! Jasper's here! We need to eat!"

o o o

Jasper and Alice had arrived thirty minutes earlier, their California tans conspicuous in the cloudy family resort, their skinny jeans and vintage t-shirts making them look like trendy foreigners among the small town bootcuts and fleecy vests of their fellow campers.

Jasper hugged his parents and patted his brothers on the back; then he nodded and smiled at Bella, a gesture infused with enough familiarity to make her blush and swallow her own greeting. She hated herself for being so childish and awkward in his presence - he was just a Cullen, after all, why would she feel so self-conscious with him, when it was so easygoing and confident with his brothers and his parents?

Once dinner was over, Jasper proceeded to extract a paperback book from his pocket and sat in a corner, reading with a pocket-light; and he continued to read the same book, in the same corner, for the rest of the vacation, or at least so it seemed to Bella. Alice smiled lots and said little, and never strayed far from his side. She seemed to have a constant need to touch him, to hold his hand, to weave her fingers through his hair, seemingly oblivious to his parents' presence, her insecurity taking over any good sense she might otherwise have.

For Bella, those days were swimming and sailing and listening to Edward learn new songs while Seth threw stones onto the still surface of the lake, counting the leaps out loud. They were fishing and hiking and roasting marshmallows on open fires, boat trips with Esme and Carlisle, and getting lulled into the easy, serene rhythm of their happiness.

Bella, Edward, and Seth woke up early and never stopped moving - the clear, still lake water too much of a pull, and the miracle of five days of uninterrupted sunshine such a blessing they did not want to waste one minute of it. Their noses got red and their shoulders peeled, their bodies humming in sync with the nature all around them.

Bella was sure she'd never felt happier in her entire life.

Jasper and Alice kept to themselves. They slept until well into the morning and disappeared most of the day, driving off in Jasper's car. Bella would have given anything to know where they went. It was only late in the afternoon that they came down to the beach, walking lazily, hand in hand; and there they sat down on the pier, dangling their legs in the water. Alice never set foot in the lake, contenting herself with sitting, arms circling her knees, her huge sunglasses masking whatever thought or feeling lurked behind. Jasper, however, would eventually get up, toss his t-shirt to the side and stand tall and lean at the edge of the pier, his body a dark silhouette against the sunset, then jump in with a roar, reaching Seth or Edward and pulling them down in a playful game of aquatic wrestling.

With Jasper in their midst, the twins gravitated towards him completely, eager for any interaction they could get with their older sibling, so distant, so absent, so god-like in their eyes. Bella was forgotten, and she swam away on these occasions, hating that she felt like an intruder, and hating that it bothered her.

She swam far, and fast, not for fun or pleasure, but with the strongwill and anger she usually put into training- pushing hard until she felt her muscles burn and her heartbeat pick up. Backstroke was her weakest specialty, and so she focused on that. She closed her eyes and concentrated on making her movements as sharp and measured as Coach Banner had taught her. The world around her disappeared.

She almost screamed when she felt the water suddenly shift next to her, and realized another person was swimming only inches from her.

She abruptly came to a halt.

"Damn, Bella!" Jasper stopped, too, panting. "You're fucking fast!"

Bella caught her breath, and realized they were much further from the shore than she'd calculated. She avoided Jasper's gaze, confused at his presence, unsure of what it meant and how to behave.

"Seth dared me to catch up with you." He smirked. "I guess I didn't believe it would actually be this hard."

Bella wanted to know what they had waged, and why Seth would set his older brother up in a race with her. Indistinctly, she realized it might have something to do with her friend's desire to include her even more fully in their family life; she thought she should be grateful, and yet here she was, in the middle of a lake with Jasper Cullen, shivering with cold and exhaustion, incapable of saying a single word, and all she could think about was that, with her wet hair plastered on her head, her ears were probably sticking out by a mile each way.

"C'mon," Jasper turned to the shore, 'let's go back before it gets dark."

o o o

At night, as promised, Bella laid down to sleep in a tiny tent with Alice, while Jasper bedded down with the twins.

Esme and Carlisle's whispered conversations resonated loudly into the night.

"I'm telling you Carlisle, if something happens to that girl of Jasper's now that she's our responsibility…"

"Nothing will happen, Esme."

"Do you think we should leave our tent unzipped so we can hear?"

"Go to sleep, darling."

"I'm serious Carlisle, I can't believe you don't care!"

"Esme!"

o o o

Alice was nineteen - practically ancient in Bella's eyes. She had short black hair that, unlike her own shaggy brown bob, managed to look both stylish and ultra feminine, and wore tiny underwear in fluorescent colors and flimsy materials that barely looked like they could serve any functional purpose at all.

Looking at the older girl's string bikini, studded with sequins over her tiny breasts, Bella felt self-conscious about her body and, most of all, about her utilitarian black one piece swimsuit. She wondered whether her mother would make fun of her if she asked to buy a bikini for next summer.

Alice was desperate to please, and her interactions with the Cullens were well-meaning but artificial, her strained smile and high-pitched voice giving away and negating her effort. But above all she was desperate to please Jasper, so she took her cues from him and ignored everyone else with an imitation of his easy insouciance that felt, on her, staid and forced. Esme and Carlisle tolerated her with good manners and kindness, but privately wondered what their son could find in such a vacuous, empty little thing; Edward and Seth, for their part, chose to ignore her completely, and Bella felt that she should do the same, at least when everyone else was around.

But Bella also saw that, whenever Jasper wasn't looking, Alice was sweet and accessible, that her eyes were wide and clear when they weren't forever darting to him, fearfully seeking his approval; her voice two tones lower, almost childish, when she wasn't trying so hard to be liked. And at night, when they went to sleep, she told Bella long-winded stories about her college roommate and how much more amazing California was than Wisconsin, and about wanting to switch her major from Economics to Philosophy because she felt such a deep connection to the big questions in life.

While Alice chattered excitedly, Bella couldn't decide whether she was bored or fascinated, or maybe some weird, intoxicating combination of both.

o o o

Bella wasn't stupid, and it didn't take her long to cotton to the fact that Alice slipped out of their tent in the middle of the night to return only minutes before dawn. The first night she pretended to be asleep, but on the second one Alice saw her wide eyes looking at her as she tried to quietly slide back into her sleeping back.

"Shhhhh," she giggled, "don't tell!"

Bella quickly shut her eyes and nodded, embarrassed at having been caught.

Later, when all was still and silent, and the only noises Bella could hear were some distant birds waking up and calling each other across the woods and the water.

"Alice?" she whispered.

"Mmmh?" came back the sleepy response.

There were so many things Bella wanted to know: Where did they go at night? What did they do? Did the sound of Jasper's voice make Alice's breath catch in her throat for a second, like it sometimes did hers? Was his hair as soft as it looked, and what did it smell like? When he kissed her and touched her, was it hard and urgent like in movies, or soft and slow like in books?

But instead she asked the simplest and hardest thing of all.

"Are you... in love with Jasper?"

Bella had no idea where this question came from, but she was suddenly consumed with the need to know everything she could about love. What was it? Where did it come from? And what did it do to you? Did it change you, the way it seemed to turn Alice into a windswept weather vane? Or did it change people the way it had changed her mother, making her steadier, more grounded, eager to conform? Would it happen to her, too, and when, and what form would  _ her _ change take?

Alice didn't open her eyes, and sighed deeply before answering.

"Oh, Bella." Her voice was distant in the restricted space. "You're so sweet. Love? I wouldn't really use  _ that _ word." She giggled some more, and it sounded strange to the younger girl's ears. Perhaps she was missing something. Then Alice sobered up: "Maybe. I don't know. He's just... you know?"

Bella said nothing, but Alice insisted.

"You do know, don't you? I mean, the twins are cute and all, and I get it that they're your little boyfriends, but Bella... Jasper? He's a man, you know? "

And although she would never, in a million years, admit it, and she barely understood what Alice was saying, Bella thought she did, in fact, kind of know.

o o o

On the last night of their vacation Bella was woken up not by the now familiar giggles but by suffocated, broken sobs.

She sat up, worried, to find Alice curled into a ball with her fist in her mouth, trying to be quiet, tears streaming down her face.

"Alice, what's up? What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

Alice shook her head and sniffed into her pillow.

"Nothing, it's nothing. Go to sleep Bella."

But the crying continued and, led by pure instinct, she reached out to the other girl; Alice took her hand and held it tight.

She said nothing for the longest time, until the sobs finally subsided.

"Just promise me one thing, Bella," Alice's voice sounded hollow and dead, so different from their previous night time confessions. "Promise me you'll stay away from assholes like Jasper Cullen."

Bella said nothing, confused.  _ What? Why? _ Only three days before Alice had been almost burning with excitement about Jasper, almost ready to admit her love for him.

"Promise me, Bella. No matter how gorgeous, how sexy, how fucking smart. No matter what they do to you or how they make you feel. Because in the end, all they care about is themselves."

Alice finally fell asleep before Bella could answer. She never got to make that promise.

  
  



	5. Chapter 5

The summer Bella turned fourteen started off with a promise to be perfect in its predictability.

She flew to Forks with the standard "Unaccompanied Minor" badge around her neck, hoping fervently this would be the last ever year she'd have to do wear it. The trip was as long and tedious as it had always been, but as soon as she stepped off the plane she breathed in deeply, loving the pungent smell of moisture and green. The Washington sky that greeted her was still the same shade of deep, layered grey, and the air was heavy and moist. She felt her skin drink it all in as her hair grew frizzy after so many months of dry desert heat.

"Hey, kiddo." Charlie hugged her tight, his boyish smile restored to its customary warmth, his arm once again heavy and secure around her shoulders. Whatever weight had been hanging over her father the previous summer had been lifted, and Bella was relieved and delighted.

"Dad..." Glad as she was of his buoyancy and demonstrativeness, she nonetheless tried to get away from him, self-conscious at his very public display of paternal affection.

"I get it, I get it," Charlie chuckled good-naturedly. "Now you're taller than me I can basically no longer hug you. Hands off!" He lifted his hands in the air with an exaggerated gesture, then grabbed her bag and started walking. "Come on, get in the car, big girl."

It was true that Bella had shot up that year - and, while still not quite as tall as her dad, her frame had lengthened significantly and she was now officially an awkward teenager: long legs, the strong shoulders of a promising swimmer, still no chest to speak of, and the small hands of a child, complete with chewed fingernails and fidgety fingers.

Other things had changed, too, much to her chagrin: a nose that seemed to have acquired a mind of its own and no longer fit in her small, pale face, and above all horrible, embarrassing body hair that now had to be taken care of quite regularly. Renee's hint on that matter had not been subtle, a razor having materialized on her sink one Saturday morning. Bella still remembered the mortification she had felt when she'd seen the little pink plastic object, so mundane and yet so ominous.

It was no secret, and no surprise given the still lingering trauma of her parents' divorce, that Bella hated and feared change, and she hoped, in coming to Forks, to have one last month of freedom and safety before it would all became inevitably and inexorably  _ different _ . In September, back in Arizona, high school beckoned, as did her mother's marriage to Phil Dwyer. Bella worried she wasn't ready for either - not for the scary, huge building populated by girls who wore pink lip-gloss and real bras and kissed boys behind the gym during lunch break; not for a new house, and a stepdad who lived his life in the limelight and never seemed to do anything wrong.

She pushed it all to the back of her mind, though, as she sank back into the front seat of her father's now familiar car, with its weird grey faux-leather seats.  _ "What? It's Japanese leather?" _ he'd told her when she was younger, and then winked in that way that always made Bella feel special and unique. Now its distinctive and inexplicable scent comforted her.

o o o

Riding her bike down the path leading to the Cullen's, she tried to ignore the nervous apprehension she felt:  _ What if everything had changed? What if the twins no longer wanted her? Would they still be the same - still perfect together? _

She needn't have worried; not at first, at least. Seth and Edward had also grown over the last year, and they, too, had started dealing with hair in new places, deeper voices and other unmistakeable changes in their bodies – though to the twins, these changes were not wholly unwelcome. So weird and marvellous were the things happening within them that they didn't yet need, nor seek, any external source of stimulation or fascination: girls were still for making fun of, although, especially in Seth's case, that mockery was getting more complicated and hypocritical by the day.

Plus, Bella was not a  _ girl _ . She was just Bella. She was there, again, still frowning and still dressed in jeans and a ratty hoody, her short hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She was just Bella, and soon they were again riding and hiking and watching movies and eating junk food and still pretending they didn't like the pop songs that came on the radio. They were still getting lifts from Esme to go to mall because it was just too far to ride their bikes.

Bella needn't have worried, however. The boys were still excited about going swimming in the river whenever the weather was mild enough, and sometimes even when it wasn't quite mild enough. They were still easy, still children despite their changing bodies, and yet they were mature enough, suddenly, to relish their unity and value what they now recognized as a unique friendship.

o o o

But nothing can stay the same forever.

Momentous, life-changing days start out like any other: there are no warning signs on waking, no way to prepare, no way to stop or thwart the inevitable progression of time.

Bella walked up to the Cullen's house on a late July day with a spring in her step and a limpid mind. She'd slept fitfully and woken up with a strange sense of unease that she couldn't quite pinpoint; yet the sight of the sun shining through the heavy clouds, the ground muddy and alive with the night rain, the air thick and fragrant, all of this had made her smile and soar and forget everything about her tiredness and discomfort.

"What should we do today?" Seth was lying on his bed when she got there, throwing a tennis ball against the wall.

Edward gave no answer: sitting on the floor at the far end of their room, he was focused and yet lost on his guitar - humming and playing the same note over and over again, trying to grasp the elusive strand of an idea formulating in his head.

Bella was sitting on the swivelling desk chair, engrossed in a well-thumbed paperback she'd found lying around in the living room and had opened, attracted by the interesting, labyrinthine illustration on the cover, then had kept reading because of its unique, surreal storyline; but on hearing Seth's voice she snapped out of her trance and jumped to her feet. "Let's go to the meadow. You know, Edward's meadow. We can have a picnic."

Edward had shared his secret place reluctantly at first, and had regretted doing so almost immediately, but now, on this beautiful day, he was happy to be there with them. Being with them was almost as good as being alone.

All the clouds were gone once they got there and the sun was shining strong and warm.

They spread out a blanket and enjoyed the warm rays on their faces, the feeling of having nowhere to be and nothing to do; they had sandwiches, soda, chips, and beef jerky, which Seth was addicted to. They had music and words and nothing else was needed.

Seth got up, mumbling something about having to take a leak, and Bella laid back on the spot he'd just vacated, with her head on her backpack, her knees bent. Edward was hunched up on his guitar, still obsessively trying to get it to sound just the way he wanted. She kicked his back, playfully.

"Come on, turn around! Talk to me!"

With a sigh, Edward turned towards her and leaned back on his elbows, squinting in the sun. "Eew, Bella," he exclaimed, noticing the brown patch on her light cotton shorts. "Your butt is totally muddy! What are you, six?"

Bella sat up and peered between her legs. Uncomprehending at first, then surprised, then shocked. Finally, as realization sank in, she hastily closed her legs and scampered away from Edward's huge staring eyes, embarrassment burning her cheeks.

"Oh fuck," was all Edward could muster once he understood, before looking away and blushing himself. "Fuck!"

He had the knowledge to understand what was going on, but no words nor experience to deal with it, and so he simply stood up and walked away, busying himself with his bike a few feet away. Bella was left sitting on the blanket, alone. Her shame was like a fire consuming her from the feet up, and she was suddenly hyperaware of every single movement and pulse in her body. She felt tears starting to flow, and she felt lost and alone, abandoned as her friend walked away from her, as if he were disgusted, as if she were polluted.

Seth came back just then, and couldn't at first make sense of the scene unfolding in front of him: Edward hastily packing his stuff, Bella crying and hugging her knees.

"What..." His head jerked from side to side, begging for a response from either of them, then finally focusing on Bella's imploring eyes. "Bella, are you okay?"

She shook her head and wiped away a tear - a small, useless gesture as more kept coming.

"I wanna go home," she said in a small, trembling voice. Instinctively, Seth looked at his brother, desperate for reassurance, nauseous with a secret and sudden fear that whatever had had this effect on Bella had been his fault.

"Okay, okay." Seth tried to sound reassuring even though he was still disoriented and lost. "Let's go home. But are you okay? What's wrong?"

Bella didn't answer immediately, and she wished she could say nothing, but his face was more worried and more adult than it had ever been, and she feared he might freak out as badly as Edward had if she didn't somehow reassure him.

"Nothing," she said through her tears, angry that she couldn't just will them to stop, "Just girl things." The pain, the shame of using such banal, trite words for something that was so visceral, so gross, made Bella burn all over again.

Understanding dawned on Seth's face, and a brief flash of shock took over his features; but, to his credit, his reaction was as different from his brother's as it could have possibly been. Relieved it wasn't anything worse, he reached out to Bella and took her backpack from her shoulders.

"Okay... okay. Let's go home. Let's go get my mom."

The ride home was excruciating for all three of them, although for very different reasons. Bella was in pain, convinced she could feel blood trickling down her legs - whether real or imagined, she couldn't tell. Seth was worried and focused on getting home, longing for his mom to make it all better, while Edward was shaken, burdened with the understanding that this changed everything, despising himself for his reaction and for the dark thoughts that the incident had elicited in him.

The sight of the house was an untold relief.

"MOM!" Seth shouted before they were even off their bikes. "MOOOOM!"

Esme came out on the porch, alarmed by the urgency in her son's voice. Fear overcame her when she saw Seth jump off his bike and help a crying Bella off hers, while Edward tore up the stairs with a dark scowl on his face and not a single word.

"What..." she didn't have time to say anymore before Seth literally shoved Bella against her. She instinctively opened her arms and Bella sank against her chest. Esme held her tight, shushing her and patting her hair gently.

"What happened, sweetie?" She spoke to Bella, but looked at her son; Seth shrugged apologetically and left, disappearing into the kitchen almost as quickly as his brother had.

"Sweetie, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"

Bella shook her head and sobbed against her. It took all her courage to get the words out. "I just... I just need a pad. And a change of clothes."

"Oh Bella," Esme's voice was soothing and warm, relieved. This, this she could deal with. "Sweetie. Let's go upstairs."

o o o

Esme spared Bella all the phoney talk about becoming a woman and her body being a temple, even though she believed in all those things and more. Instead, she took her to her bathroom and urged her to take a shower while she made some tea and prepared a hot water bottle. Later, when Bella was clean and calmed, dressed in a pair of incredibly old and soft sweatpants, Esme gave her a hug that conveyed more than words could ever have, then brought in the telephone and urged her to call Renee.

Esme had no regrets and harbored no sense that anything was missing in her life, or in her family, and yet that afternoon, as she pushed Bella's hair away from her face and handed her some  _ Tylenol _ and a glass of water, she thought that if she'd ever had a daughter she'd have wanted to have one just like her - stoic and full of promise and hope, soft and yet brave, self-reliant and hungry for affection.

While Bella shared the news with her mom and found reassurance in her pragmatic, somewhat premature talk of doctor's appointments and birth control, Esme went upstairs to Edward and Seth's room and had a very clear, very stern talk with them about bodies and respect and the meaning of friendship. Seth nodded, making sense of it all in his instinctive, uncomplicated way. He asked a few pointed questions, curiosity overcoming his self-consciousness. Edward, on the other hand, kept staring at the ceiling and refused to even make eye contact with his mother; the sudden, crystal-clear realization that Bella was a woman now, and as such different, and somehow more advanced than him made him certain that she was starting to leave them, leave him, behind. It didn't matter that only a few hours before he'd never questioned their relationship, their equality: the fact was that he was now, in her eyes, a child. The thought filled him with a despair he couldn't even begin to comprehend.

o o o

Esme and Carlisle had assumed, perhaps naively, that Jasper would be spending the summer, or at least most of it, in Forks. They had braced themselves for new affectations, new interests, possibly a new girlfriend, but nothing had prepared them for the shock they felt when he delivered the news he was going to be travelling around Europe for a month.

Carlisle had been to France, once, for a conference, when he was a medical student. All he remembered was the bad plumbing and the strange food, which had left him feeling inadequate for his incapacity to enjoy it. Esme, for her part, had only ever been to Canada. It was not a matter of means - they could have easily afforded the trip - or lack of curiosity, for they had a love of movies and books; it had simply never occurred to them, so caught up had they been with the busy and repetitive task of bringing up a family. And while both of them considered themselves open-minded and supportive of their children's ambitions, the unknown quality of Jasper's desire for adventure left them speechless, worried, and, perhaps, a little bit jealous.

Jasper had saved enough money from his part-time job as a researcher in a local newspaper to afford flights and rail fare, with a little left to spare for accommodation and food. His threadbare budget, far from being a source of concern, excited him, the sense of adventure it seemed to bring with it a reason for anticipation and excitement.

He flew to London with Peter, his roommate and the closest thing he had to a friend, spent two weeks visiting museums, walking down iconic roads and hanging out in strange smelling pubs with sticky floors, in clubs that spilled revellers out too early onto sticky smelly pavements before moving on to dodgy Spanish bars in Soho where they would drink cheap wine, dance to atrocious music and get sweaty and clammy until dawn. They slept in hostels full of Australian backpackers and subsided on a diet of warm lager, gin and tonics, and salt and vinegar chips. They bought second-hand books on the South Bank and spent one interminable sunny afternoon getting stoned out of their minds in Hampstead Heath with the whole immense city glistening at their feet.

One summer night in a pub in West London, as another lazy evening slowly drowned into the Thames, Peter chatted up a blonde girl who giggled easily and talked with the sweetest accent and the most obscene language. Charlotte was all legs and big earrings and loud singing to popular lyrics, with big, dark eyes that held nothing back. She danced like the night would never end and drank like she would never have to stop. Peter's summer trip ended that night, and a life he never knew he wanted, in a city he never knew he'd call home, started there and then.

Now alone, Jasper took a ferry to France and made his way, slowly and randomly, south, south, south, on trains crowded with holiday-makers, through cities devoid of locals and repopulated with wide-eyed tourists; through Switzerland, where all he could afford to eat for four days was white bread—so much more exotic, so much more inspiring than the gelatinous, plastic-clad slices he would have normally expected - and tap water - so much clearer and purer than what he was used to back home. All he would remember later on, of this strange, anachronistic country, was a mix of wonder at the beauty of it all and an innate distrust for the easy, too easy flow of money and ostentation, the sight of breath-taking mountains and lakes competing in his memory with heavy gold watches from teenagers' wrists and long rows of luxury cars.

Then hot, hot, decadent Italy, clinging to its past for fear of looking into the future and finding it empty: churches - so many churches, all different and yet all the same, the smell of decay and humidity, the cool vaults a welcome respite from the oppressive heat outside; he was waiting, curiously and somewhat expectantly, to feel some stirrings of spirituality, thinking it almost impossible that hundreds of years of worship would not rub off on him, as if by osmosis. But nothing of the sort happened, and so finally, the long list of must-see places ticked, the syllabus of experience and knowledge he'd set out to acquire completed, he boarded a ferry bound for Greece.

On the day Bella was lying in his mother's bed, staring at the huge trees in his garden through the windows, coming to terms with the fact that her childhood had definitely and dramatically ended, Jasper was sleeping on the floor at Piraeus harbor, alongside dozens other people: an army of beautiful, young soldiers drunk on freedom and a temporary desire to refute all trappings of civilization.

While coming to Europe had been a clear, strong, obvious idea for him—for there was so much world outside of Forks, so much world outside America, so much to see and feel and breathe—he had no expectations of Greece, an unplanned, last minute detour in his initial schedule. Sure, there was the appeal of history, of following ancient footsteps, a naïve desire to find the origins of it all. But that's not what his fellow travellers were seeking, and he knew that it was not what he was ultimately after either. They were all motivated by much more mundane pursuits: to laugh and love and get lost in pleasure.

His backpack progressively emptier, his clothing progressively lighter - till all he needed, really, was a pair of flip-flops, shorts and a change of t-shirts he squinted in the sun - sunglasses lost somewhere in France - he boarded an early morning ferry to Crete.

The air was heavy with the oppressive heat, the sun glaring so strong it burnt his eyes, ricocheting across the rocks and the sea, vegetation sparse and low-lying; the sound of cicadas deafening in the early afternoon; the smell of salt, and cooking, and rotting fruit. Jasper's senses were assaulted and he spent the first few days wandering around, dazed, incapable of reconciling this place, this crowded island of hedonism and freedom, with the narrow confines of what his real life was. He drank it all in, fully conscious that this was a parenthesis for him, a chance to experiment being someone else; to drift; to just be.

After that he somehow got attached to a group of Italian guys, who instructed him in the way of seduction, Med-style: which was not actually about conquering females, but rather an education in team spirit and male solidarity. "The pack," Jasper called them in his head, amused and somewhat fascinated by their gregariousness. Normally so solitary and self-sufficient. he skirted along the edges of the group, the irony not lost on him.

Their alliance started off with a two-hour debate as to what they should call him - the name "Jasper," apparently, having no equivalent in Italian and therefore hardly adequate given the circumstances. They settled on " _ Biondo, _ " which was really like having no name at all, which suited him just fine because this was not him. This laid-back, unattached, itinerant life was a temporary reprieve, a parenthesis on the straight and fast path of his life; it was a charade, an act that he could only enjoy as his own alter ego.

They slept five to a room, woke up at two in the afternoon, spent the day at the beach strategizing conquests that would never happen; then occupied their evenings by getting stupendously drunk on cheap Ouzo and inventing comically cheesy pickup lines at an all-night disco, which invariably ended with someone passing out on the beach as the sun rose.

His skin turned golden and his hair one shade lighter, the taste of salt always on his lips.

On his last day, as the sun dipped into the water, Jasper swam as far as his arms and legs could take him, until he was alone, surrounded by the warm and salty waters of the Mediterranean - so still, so immobile, so different from the Pacific Ocean he was used to. This was a sea you could lose yourself in, not an ocean you had to constantly battle and fear.

Closing his eyes, he planned. He planned hard work and success; he planned discipline and determination. He planned to be different, different from his peers—different from his parents. He planned his future as if he could control it all.

He left himself float away, relishing the feeling of being completely weightless, unknown, unattached, and alone.

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

Coming back from Europe, Jasper had felt on top of the world, invincible; and at first his elation had given him a special, nervous energy, a confidence that was bright and warm, attractive, contagious; he had been able to achieve more, to study longer, to speak better than ever before; he felt, and those around him recognized, a distinct edge that came from having seen the world, from having relied only on himself, from having pushed the boundaries of what he thought was possible for him.

He doubled his workload at school, at first out of pure curiosity, but then, increasingly, out of a single-minded determination to excel, to accelerate, to surpass. And, almost without noticing, his confidence and fervor hardened him, set him apart, isolated him. Having cemented his belief that he could live very well alone, he became aloof; and in his haste to reach his future as fast as he could, he severed most ties with his past. Friends became acquaintances, girlfriends became hookups, and his parents, his brothers, sporadic calls and emails.

It had always been easy for Jasper to be liked; he had never wanted for companionship or affection, and so had never placed much value in either. Now it was just as easy to detach himself from those he loved, and from those who had claimed to love him

o o o

And the summer Bella turned fifteen, Jasper didn't come home at all, much to his parents' chagrin and his brothers' disappointment.

He'd broken the news in early June during one of Esme's customary late Sunday night calls – when she was too tired to fight the urge to hear her eldest son's voice, and too melancholy to respect his almost painful need for detachment.

Jasper had gotten himself a summer internship as a junior researcher in a law firm – a feat almost unheard of for an Undergraduate.

Esme said nothing at first, processing the information, cursing herself for the assumptions she'd made about having all her children under one roof this year for a few, too short days. He'd changed the subject before she could ask more, before she could try to persuade him otherwise.

"It's a great opportunity, Mom." His voice had been quiet but unhesitant. "Be happy for me."

"I am happy, darling, but… not even a weekend? Not even for the 4th July? We haven't seen you since Thanksgiving."

"Mom…. They need me right away, and full time. It's going to be busy. "You know. Intense." He paused. "A fast track to law school," he'd said, using his most convincing, soothing voice.

o o o

"You should be proud of him." Carlisle reasoned with his wife, missing the point entirely because, indeed, Esme was proud, so proud she was bursting with it, but that wasn't enough to shake the raw edges of her nostalgia and the bitter, not wholly rational, feeling of loss. She had always known her eldest son wanted to grow up quickly; she had always known he was ambitious and was going to fly the nest faster and farther than his peers, but what she hadn't prepared herself for was just how difficult it would be for her to accept it and let him go.

"He's running away, Carlisle. I cannot help feeling he's running away." Her anguished voice resounded in the dark room, pulling her husband back from the brink of sleep.

"Nonsense." Carlisle wanted to reassure her, but damn if she didn't always choose to voice her gloomiest thoughts in the middle of the night when he was barely coherent with tiredness. "He's just growing up, Esme. He's gone to college, is all. That's what all kids do."

"It's not like that." Esme's voice was soft, as if she was talking to herself. "It's not just that." Next to her, Carlisle's breathing became regular and soft, small snoring noises signaling that he had lost his pointless fight to stay awake. "It's not the thousand miles between us, it's all the things he doesn't say, all the things he doesn't share. I miss him."

She slid down the covers and stared at the shadows that the trees in the garden were casting on the ceiling, wondering if and how she was ever going to win back her son, what or who could possibly be the bridge on which he'd come back to them, until exhaustion overcame her worry and sleep claimed her.

o o o

Jasper craved the exposure that this internship – just a summer job, and yet so much more – would bring him; he hoped that it would result in a glowing letter of recommendation for law school, so that he wouldn't have to waste time after graduation. He was also glad for the modest financial uplift that finally allowed him to move out of the dorms and into a bare, sparsely furnished studio just two blocks away from the beach. It was small and smelled funny, and through the vent in the bathroom he could hear his upstairs neighbors' conversations word for word. But it was his, and it felt like a landmark victory.

o o o

On his first day he stepped into the shiny lobby of a downtown building, all marble and crystal and loud, fast steps resonating in the unforgiving acoustics. He didn't exactly know what he was hoping to learn, what he wanted to achieve, but he kept his head high, his eyes unwavering, refusing to be intimidated by the looks he met in the elevator, in the corridor, in the copy room. He followed the hurried, tense form of his supervisor – a woman called Maggie, whom he judged to be in her mid-thirties, tired face and hair messily pulled back, flat shoes and no makeup, probably pretty once but on the cusp of giving up for good – took in her explanations, promised her he would ask her if he had doubts.

"I'd rather you bother me twenty times a day with stupid questions than have to spend hours fixing your fuck-ups," she said with the wary, resigned voice of someone who'd been in this position many times before and had to fix up more than her fair share of interns' fuck-ups. She hoped, like she always did, that this one would be different, that he would surprise her and impress her, that the confident, cool demeanor he'd exhibited in his interview was not just a façade, that his thoughtful, unusually mature responses meant he had a brain and used it.

Jasper was determined there would be no fuck-ups, and he worked hard, meticulously, second-guessing his every move, honing and controlling his instincts to ensure that Maggie, or anyone else, could find no fault with his work and his demeanor.

He ignored the lustful stares from the pretty blonde secretaries, he pretended not to notice the subtle innuendo from the filing clerk; instead, he immersed himself in a corporate world that was fast paced, sharp-edged, and tinged with just a hint of seediness – so very different from the sleepy, repetitive, and wholesome world he'd grown up in; so different, too, from the abstract and isolated world of academia. He was acutely aware of his youth, of being a rookie, and wore his inexperience in the workplace like a shameful mark he had to rid himself of as soon as possible. He observed those around him, took note of the way they dressed and the topics they talked about, willing himself to learn fast, not just about analysis and legislation and research but above all how to be a man.

His only frame of reference so far had been his father, and he was adamant that he would not be like him. He was mildly ashamed of feeling this way, for he knew Carlisle was a good man, widely respected, and, in his own, unglamorous way, successful. He had loved his father deeply as a child and adolescent, and loved him still, but had stopped idolizing him the moment he'd set foot outside Washington and realized there was a world that was bolder and meaner and more exciting than he could have ever imagined. Now all he was left with was a desire to be different.

He looked at those around him, at their sharp clothes and single-minded determination, at the way they never seemed to let any weakness shine through, at their carefully guarded body language and clipped words: few smiles, and even then, controlled; laughter reserved for late evening drinks and sporadic celebrations of success; short sentences, loud voices, liberal but precise use of curse words. He looked at them and memorized everything, willing it to sink in, to mould himself to them.

By contrast, he felt soft, unguarded: his blonde, wavy hair childish; his shirts crinkled; his ties too loose.

"Hey, John-Boy!" one of the junior partners had called him on the first day, some kind of joke on his small-town origins, he'd assumed; no one had laughed, but regardless, Jasper had cut his hair shorter, requested extra-starch on his shirts at the cleaners, and involuntarily started clenching his jaw in a way that made his face look tougher and more distant.

That summer he barely saw the sun, holed up as he was in the airless, windowless cubicle, all day long and often late into the night, too many Saturdays and Sundays spent finishing reports that were never quite good enough; reading up on cases and court transcripts; catching up on administrative tasks that had at first felt demeaning, until he realized that there is a strange, compelling discipline needed for filing and that it was yet another skill he needed to acquire.

He was sure of his choices, and he rarely hesitated or faltered; but he wondered, sometimes, whether he was missing out on something – whether he should be out partying and drinking, hooking up with random girls; falling in love, making mistakes he would regret.

The threat of emptiness, of unbalance was always there, behind the scenes, just out of the reaches of his consciousness. There was a sense, hidden deep within himself, in a corner of his soul he rarely visited, that his life so far had been nothing more than an exercise in living; and that something, something important, the key to it all, was still out of bounds, and that he would never find it.

But he chased his doubts away, chastising himself for wasting time and energy on self-loathing that would get him nowhere.

He was on his way. He was out, out of the rain and clouds; out of the oppressive greenery; out of the suffocating small town love of his family. And if he could help it, he'd never go back.

o o o

In Forks, Bella spent a difficult, strained summer.

She arrived in Washington exhausted, tired from school and from the ever more rigorous and demanding training she had undertaken over the previous months; for, seemingly all at once, swimming had gone from an intense yet enjoyable activity which came easily to her – just one of many in which she enthusiastically took part to busy herself away from both home and school – to the main focus of her life. Bella wasn't sure how it had happened, how she'd gone from doing something she was good at under the benevolent watch of Coach Banner to being part of the high school swim team and expected to train and compete and specialize and drop everything else for it.

She had always loved swimming – the monotonous, rhythmic movements, the solitude, the focus on herself and on every single movement of her body. Now she just went with it, listening to those around her telling her that she was too good to give up on it, heeding her mother's newly embraced hunger for achievement, and Phil's delight at getting the "right kind of exposure," trusting that this was what she was meant to do even if it meant early mornings, late nights, weekends away, and pushing and pushing and pushing herself past the barrier of pain and endurance even when she thought she couldn't push any further.

Finishing first in the 200-meter breaststroke at the Arizona Under-16 State Championship had been exciting, but it had been short-lived, and all elation had evaporated by the time she'd waved goodbye to Renee and Phil at the airport. When she got to Forks she wanted nothing more than to forget all about Phoenix and rest, falling back in the slow, relaxed rhythm she remembered from her previous summers. But even though seemingly everything was the same on the surface, things had changed; she had changed.

For the first time she found herself more and more in conflict with her father. It was small things, at first: like the way his table manners suddenly seemed to annoy her without reason; or how he insisted she meet him for lunch at the hospital every other day, only to embarrass her by introducing her to every single orderly and nurse on staff and lavishly sing her praises. After what she felt had been a whole year of being on display, Bella could take no more exposure, and she hated her father for doing the same thing her mother and Phil excelled at: parading her, exhibiting her. She suffered those occasions in silence, with gritted teeth and shifty eyes, wishing her hair were longer so she could hide beneath it.

Bella missed the old days – when her dad had been everything to her. She missed the sense of safety that came simply by virtue of being next to him; yet, at the same time, she felt the pull away from him, away from her childhood, a growing and frightening desire to claim herself as her own person.

o o o

Seth and Edward had changed, too. Physically, it was striking. Both were much taller than Bella remembered, but most of all bigger, stronger: Seth especially, with shoulders that never seemed to end and arms that lifted her up and spun her around effortlessly. Edward was leaner, bordering on skinny, and yet still solidly built, exuding strength of a different, subtler kind. Bella noticed that Edward was careful not to touch her and barely spoke to her at first. She wondered why, hurt at first, and then pissed off.

"What the hell, E? Why so rude?" she finally snapped one afternoon, out in the fields behind the house. She and Seth had been walking ahead, chatting non-stop, but Edward had been dragging his feet, lagging behind, and refusing to be engaged in banter and conversation.

Edward shrugged, still refusing to meet her gaze.

"Seriously." Bella walked up to him and hit him not quite playfully on his shoulder. "What crawled up your ass? Look at me!" She demanded.

Slowly, Edward lowered his face to hers, and looked at her through his long hair. Truth be told, he had forgotten why he had been upset with Bella in the first place and he was fed up with being angry with her. He was sure it was nothing she had done, but he had no intention of apologizing for his odd, moody behavior.

When his eyes finally found hers he couldn't help but smile: she was so funny, her face scrunched up in an angry frown, her nostrils flaring slightly, and a smudge of chocolate on her left cheek. His smile only managed to intensify her scowl.

"What? What's so funny?" she said crossing her arms across her chest.

"You've got chocolate on your face," he finally said, his smile now big and open, and Bella's hand flew to her face; she smiled, too, and, just like that, the clouds dissipated, and they were friends again.

Bella found, to her relief, that their three-way bond was not broken, but that their union was now loser, more fluid. They were not kids anymore, and that there was a guardedness in their interactions that had never been there before. They were different people, with different interests and increasingly different experiences. They loved their time together, but needed their space; theirs was no longer the type of friendship that required them to be together every minute of every day.

That summer left Bella with long hours to fill on her own, which at first was disorienting. She did not like to spend time alone in a house that felt alien and unloved; she did not know how to stand still, how to while away time, how to truly rest. So she gravitated back to the water, spending long hours swimming laps in Forks' old and crowded public pool, telling herself it was just to keep fit, fearful of admitting to herself she had nothing better to do.

o o o

And yet, despite the changes and the subtle distancing, spending time with the Cullens – not just the twins, but their parents, too – was like second nature to Bella: and it happened often, during that summer, that she would appear at their house early in the morning, knowing full well that the twins would still be asleep. She sat with Esme at the old oak kitchen table, stained and scratched with long years of loving use, and chatted with her easily about television shows and what she wanted to do when she grew up, or sometimes saying nothing at all, relishing this homely feeling that was at once familiar and foreign.

She increasingly came to seek refuge in the beautiful house hidden in the trees, away from her father's small and anonymous bungalow; away from the cold walls and unused kitchen appliances; away from her solitude.

She loved the worn-out, unfashionable style of the house and its occupants: Esme's old jeans; her long, shapeless cardigans with holes on their pockets; the beat-up velour armchair that sat incongruously in a corner of the large kitchen.

Esme observed her, that summer, as much as she observed the twins –  _ her kids _ , she liked to think of them, – all three proud and apprehensive in equal measure.

Edward, whom she always thought of as her youngest, even if only by mere minutes; Edward and his moods – unpredictable, mercurial, like the constantly changing Washington sky. There was so much that he felt, and so little he said: and in that distance, between his thoughts and feelings and words, was a growing loneliness, the seeds of which were just starting to take hold, and which his mother intuited painfully. Her optimistic side hoped it was just a phase, but deep down she feared it would stay with him forever.

Seth, her sunshine, the least complicated and easiest to love of her children; Seth and his hunger – for new friends, for girls, for thrills, for life. Sporty and gregarious, he was still obsessed with his mountain bike; his phone constantly chirped with texts, alerts, and new plans. Seth, constantly getting in trouble; Seth like a thunderstorm, gathering strength and exploding, no time to waste on analysis or self-doubt.

And Bella, the daughter she would never have, the girl who had burst into their lives and etched a permanent mark onto her family. It worried her slightly to see her more subdued, more reticent than she remembered; and she wondered whether it was a simple consequence of growing up, or whether there was something else that caused her fire to dim and flicker.

Esme watched them, wishing they could stay like this forever, that she could keep them close to her indefinitely, the house vibrating with the sound of their music and laughter and heavy, running steps down the creaky wooden stairs, shouting and fighting over showers and clothes and CDs. Soon,  _ too soon _ she feared, their room would become abandoned just like Jasper's had, a constant, silent reminder that his life was somewhere else.

o o o

When the summer came to an end, on their last afternoon together, Bella and the twins rode their bikes through the forest, pushing up the hills until they got too tired and breathless. Sitting on rocks, resting during a break in the rain, Bella said out loud what she'd been feeling for a long time.

"I wish I didn't have to go back to Phoenix, that I could stay here."

Surprisingly, it was Edward who spoke first:

"You could stay with your dad. You could move here and transfer schools."

"We'd be in the same class." Seth chimed in.

Bella thought of her father, of what it would be like to share in his solitary, bachelor existence; then of her mother, back in Arizona. She thought about the dry desert heat and about her school – her huge, sprawling school in which she always felt so adrift

She thought of endless afternoons of practice, of lap upon lap of resistance training, of those grueling sprinting sessions, of weight lifting and stretching, of the constant smell of chlorine, and wet clothes that seemed to stick to her like a second skin; she thought of competitions and the whispers about athletic scholarships she was not supposed to have heard.

"I guess I could," but even as she said it she knew none of them really believed it.

  
  



	7. Chapter 7

Of course, Bella did not move to Forks; she went back to Phoenix just as she always knew she would—went back to school armed with a vague determination that things would be different, that she would hold on to that sense of confident detachment, of easygoing acceptance that had come to dominate her summer.

As the plane circled on the red-hot tarmac, she told herself that she would try to shape the course of her life more forcefully, more individually, standing up for herself, finding her own path.

But thoughts and decisions that had seemed crystal-clear and inevitable in the vibrant, fragrant North-Western mornings dulled and faded quickly under the combined assault of dry heat and expectations, and it only took a week for the old, well-rehearsed routine to set in again: school, practice, homework, sleep... and again and again and again.

Her mother was gone a lot that winter, wrapped up in functions and cocktails and benefits and conventions. Bella saw her more often on the pages of the local newspapers than she did in the flesh and marvelled at how fresh, radiant and put together Renee looked in those pictures— _ the beautiful Mrs Phil Dwyer _ , as she was often described—almost as if she had been waiting all her life to find this stage, this role, these designer clothes and shoes. Bella was sure her mother had never smiled that much or that big when she herself had been a kid, and her happiness at her contentment was tinged with something ugly and bitter.

If Renee had been around more, she might perhaps have noticed a restlessness in her daughter, a sense of dissatisfaction hanging over her head, the way her wide, beautiful shoulders sagged when she sat down and her eyes lost focus when no one was looking at her. She might perhaps have realized that Bella yearned for something she couldn't even place; she might have given her the words and the tools to understand herself, and perhaps she might have helped her navigate these confusing emotions with a little more serenity.

As it was, Bella was left to her own devices and trod along the path she had found herself on by choice or chance. She studied hard. She swam with her usual determination and single-mindedness, deriving, if not exactly joy, at least a measure of satisfaction from her improvements and successes and some sense of identity from her athletic endeavors.

Everyone knew she was on the swim team, and that simple fact defined and resolved her high school status. Not exactly a loner, but not one of the popular crowd, either; and because it was assumed, in part correctly, that swimming filled all of her spare time, no invitations to parties or shopping trips ever materialised. Her teammates, with their strange mix of forced camaraderie and anxious competitiveness, served as poor substitutes for the friends she had left behind in Washington. Unconsciously, she accepted that this was just the way things were—friendship and fun relegated to wet summers far away from home.

Bella had grown up hearing herself defined as a tomboy and, in truth, had never felt particularly delicate or girly; tutus and tiaras had never appealed to her; she had never stolen her mother's nail polish growing up.

Funny then, painfully ironic even, that just as she started to feel the stirrings of a desire to explore this side of herself, it became almost impossible for her to do it. For her hair, which had always been frizzy, was now unmanageable due to the constant assault of chlorine and daily drying; her skin, naturally pale and delicate, needed the heaviest of lotions to soothe it after being in water so long; and changing once or twice a day in a crowded, noisy locker room made the planning of carefully coordinated outfits an impossibility.

So Bella cut her hair short, wore sweats and trainers, and gave the makeup aisle at CVS wide-berth.

Most days she was okay with this, too busy and focused on what needed to be done to distract herself with what couldn't be; and yet she looked with envy and admiration at her classmates, at their long, carefully straightened hair and their colourful eye shadow, and the way they flirted and held hands with lanky boys in the corridors, and sometimes wondered how her life might have turned out if she'd listened to her mother and chose Saturday morning ballet instead of swimming.

o o o

Winter passed in a blur of hard work and weekend meets, of early nights and early mornings.

Bella chatted to Seth and Edward occasionally, whenever they appeared online at the same time as her, which was rarely, and their conversations were always the same; complaints about homework from Seth, with regular requests for her to help him out since the curriculum in Arizona seemed to be a few weeks ahead of Washington; links to obscure songs and videos and bizarre Wikipedia entries from Edward, usually without explanation or context and no follow-up discussion, which left her confused for days; and succinct updates on her life which she increasingly felt self-conscious about giving because of the sheer repetitiveness.

Bella envied their apparently buoyant social life, as evidenced by the numerous pictures that appeared on Sunday afternoon or Monday night, of parties and games and carefree crowds. By contrast, Bella felt the pictures with her name tagged to them were always the same and never flattering: her face smothered and constricted by a tight swim cap and goggles; or red and scrunched up, barely surfacing from the water as she looked intently at an out-of-sight board for her time to come up; or sleeping, exhausted, on the bus going home after a gruelling away meet.

Seth teased her occasionally about the boys in these pictures—"You like them big, Bells!"— and his implication made her heart drop every time, as did his one time joke that she lived her life semi-naked—"You're like the little mermaid or some shit."

He was so, so far from the truth, and she thought that if he could imagine just how sterile her interaction with those boys were, just how unattractive her skimpy clothes made her feel, he would like her a little bit less.

All she longed for was to wear long, soft clothes, and be just normal, a terrestrial creature, if only for a while.

o o o

The following summer, as she turned sixteen, Bella found out with some relief that the Forks swimming pool was closed for renovations—and so, despite her promise to her coach that she would keep up regular training, she gratefully abandoned that plan, resolving to worry about her physical fitness in September.

Charlie had taken up a new hobby, one that surprised Bella at first but then filled her with delight. His kitchen burst with every and any gadget imaginable, and every night her father experimented with something new and exotic, and occasionally just plain odd.

"Dad…," Bella had asked the first evening, confronted with a cheese soufflé with a side of fennel gratin, "what happened to you?"

"You know," Charlie shrugged, his eyes dancing with self-deprecating humor, "long winter nights and all that. I got bored of sitting by myself eating frozen burgers in front of the TV."

"So now you're not by yourself anymore?" Bella teased him, hopeful.

He ruffled her hair affectionately before setting the dish on the table. "Well, I don't eat frozen burgers anymore, that's for sure."

They ate together every night in a kitchen that was messy and too warm, celebrating culinary successes and laughing at the infrequent failures. Words came easily and freely, and Bella marvelled at the unlikely avenue on which her father had found his way back to her.

o o o

The phone had rung on her first evening in Forks, and Charlie had not picked up.

"It's for you Bells".

"How do you know?" she asked as she ran to pick up.

"I know." And of course he was right.

Although she was nostalgic of the days when the boys used to show up at the top of her driveway within hours of her arriving, Bella was excited to be close to her friends again, thrilled to hear their voices and soon see them in person.

"Yo Bells!" Seth's yelled in the telephone. "Whassup, dude?"

Bella laughed.

"I didn't know you'd joined a gang."

She heard Edward snicker in the background.

"Am I on speaker?" she asked, wondering what her voice sounded like, amplified, at the other end. "Hi Edward!"

"Hey." His voice was low, a bit distant. She imagined them in their room and longed to be there with them.

"Listen up," Seth again, urgent, insistent, "mom is teaching us how to drive! Wanna join in?"

Bella smiled. She had hoped to get some lessons from Charlie, but this was so much better.

"Sure!"

"'Kay then. We'll pick you up tomorrow at ten. Be there! Night Bells!"

She heard him scramble away, whistling something, then the door open and close behind him.

"Night Bella." Edward's voice was the last she heard before the line went dead.

o o o

As promised, Esme and the boys were outside her house the next morning, honking enthusiastically, the old Volvo with scratched sides and a dented fender back into service. Bella burst out of the house with a wide grin, jumping down the steps, and fell into Esme's embrace gratefully. Edward was at the wheel, and he smiled at her from under his long hair. Seth slid in the back next to her, bumping a fist on her shoulder playfully.

And just like that they were gone, a daily routine settling easily, marked by morning lessons, noisy lunches at the Cullens', long afternoons of wandering around and talking about nothing.

o o o

Towards the end of the summer, Bella thought, for a few days, that she might be in love with Edward. He was, after all, everything a girl should dream of: tall, handsome, moody.

He was familiar enough not to be threatening, yet had developed, over the years, an aura of mystery that his twin brother lacked. He wore strange, odd-looking clothes—a pair of Carlisle's old jeans, a sweater in a weird brown color he'd found in a vintage shop in Seattle the previous spring. He listened to the coolest music. She didn't know any other teenager who knew Joy Division (Hell, she hadn't even known who Joy Division  **was** before Google had enlightened her.), and he'd let his hair grow to a messy, unflattering length that marked him out as a willing outcast.

It was so easy to talk to Seth, to banter loosely and tease him about his girlfriends, real or imaginary, and to be teased back and giggle and hit him and just hang out. But Edward always kept himself a bit apart from them, his guitar never out of sight, his fingers constantly trying out tunes and melodies or scribbling lyrics on the palm of his left hand.

Edward would look at them and say nothing, his gaze inscrutable, his hands deep in his pockets; and in those moments Bella felt anxious and insecure about their friendship and wondered whether it meant that it was not a friendship at all, but something deeper and murkier.

In her clearer moments, alone at night in her childhood purple room, while she fought to identify and address the strange stirrings deep within her, as her body seemed to vibrate with an intense, unknown energy that had no focus point and no way to spend itself, Bella knew that, more than anything, she wanted to love Edward.

She wanted to love.

She wanted love.

She did not dare ask herself the question of whether or not what she felt for Edward was indeed love.

It was Seth who gave her the answer one Sunday afternoon as they were playing cards in their room, and his unfailing cheerfulness kept meeting with obstinate silence from both his brooding brother and his scowling friend.

"Dudes, you two are just the same."

Bella and Edward's heads had snapped back to him, a mirroring puzzled look on their faces.

"I mean, look at you. Edward is basically the dude version of Bella, right? You're both so quiet and shit. So reserved. Like you don't want or need anyone else to know what's going on in your heads."

It was like an epiphany, and Seth felt inspired to continue his unusually eloquent monologue.

"Okay, so you...," he pointed at Bella, "are all sporty and no-nonsense, while he...," Seth kicked his brother's leg," is Mr. Emo rock star. But apart from that, you could be fucking twins."

Then he got up, laughing at his unintended joke, unaware of the sudden realization he had inspired in Bella. She saw then that deep down she and Edward were more soul-siblings than soulmates. Her attraction to him was purely rational, purely intellectual. She wanted to be in love with him, which really was only a poor substitute for the real thing.

A pang of loss accompanied her realization.

o o o

Jasper had been home briefly at the beginning of the summer, just before Bella's arrival. He only had a week's break between the end of college and the beginning of law school—an accelerated, two year degree, one of the few in the country, suggested by one of the partners at the law firm where he'd kept working through the winter. They had agreed to partial tuition reimbursement, which was almost unheard of for the small, aggressively ambitious firm.

"Come on, Cullen. What are you waiting for?" It was so rare for James to find an intern worthy of his attention, of his consideration, and now Jasper's hesitation annoyed him. "Why waste three years when you can be on your way in two? You know you have a job here the moment you graduate. You were born to be a lawyer."

Jasper finally accepted the offer as if it had, indeed, been his predetermined destiny. Nothing happened by chance, after all. This was his opportunity, and he was going to take it.

o o o

"So soon?" his father had asked on hearing the news. "Are you sure? Why not try something else first, just to see? Law school will still be there in a year's time."

If James's pushiness had given him pause for thought, Carlisle's caution, which he perceived as a lack of faith, a desire to hold him back, irritated him for the opposite reason.

"Dad. I'm sure. And I've got funding. So…" He'd let the sentence trail, hating that he felt defensive about something he should have every right to feel proud of.

It was perhaps because of this strangely vulnerable state that he hadn't been able to resist his mother's plea that he come to Forks for just a few days.

"Come home, to rest. Let me spoil you a bit." Esme's voice had been soft and warm, yet strangely, irresistibly commanding.

The few days he spent in Forks were long enough to confuse and worry his parents - to alarm them at the new hardness in his words and at the way he seemed so withdrawn and aloof; yet not long enough to give them a glimpse into what the reason might be. He reassured them that all was good—that yes, he was still sure, that he was doing well and enjoying it. Yes, California was the place for him. No, there were no problems. All was good.

When Esme had asked him, hesitantly, timidly, whether he had met someone special, Jasper had shrugged, his body going tense, then limp, as if briefly electrified. Esme had thought she'd been on to something and had waited for her son to open up to her—she was ready; she was willing; she would listen to all his troubles.

But Jasper had simply turned towards her and smiled - a rare glimpse into his softer, untarnished self, his blue eyes full of an almost forgotten childish affection.

"Come on Mom, you know there can never be anyone else. I'm a mama's boy through and through."

o o o

Carlisle went to bed early that night, and the twins were out at some party, so he found himself alone with Esme. It had been years since they'd been alone together, and it was surprisingly difficult for both of them. Esme sensed his discomfort, but she felt out of her depth when trying to soothe her adult son, not quite grasping what it was that had made him grow so distant, almost cold, so unlike the enthusiastic and shy seventeen year old she remembered. It felt to her that all these years of college and hard work had only served to make him wearier, his vitality withering away as the list of his achievements grew more and more impressive.

As she looked at him now, an aura of dissatisfaction tainted his beautiful face, and her heart ached at her incapacity to reach out to him.

"Shall we watch a movie, darling?" she suggested, gently.

Jasper shrugged.

"Sure, why not."

"Angela lent me this amazing Chinese movie, you know the kind your dad refuses to watch because they're too arty-farty" Esme said, as she switched on the TV.

"Whatever, Mom.' Then, because she looked slightly hurt by his dismissive tone, "Art house Chinese movie sounds great."

They sat in silence on the couch as impossibly sensual images of a couple's doomed love affair flickered on the screen-a man and a woman living in the same house, strangers, their paths repeatedly crossing in smoky alleys and dark corridors. Melancholy music punctuated and a growing, tangible attraction that was never consummated, and yet seemed to consume them entirely.

Jasper soon became aware of his mother crying softly besides him and held out his hand without thinking; she grabbed it gratefully and held it tight, willing her touch to melt the ice that seemed to have enveloped her son's heart, intuiting that a fiery storm was raging in his head and soul, awakened by the story he'd just watched.

The moment of intimacy dissolved with the closing credit, and Jasper stood up, kissed her lightly on the cheek and walked out of the room.

"I'm going to bed. Good night."

o o o

For how to tell his mother the truth? How to explain to her that yes, yes, there was someone, and she was special, but not in the way she expected—not in a way that could ever be shared?

Maria had turned his world upside down, from the very first time he had seen her, just weeks before-more beautiful and exotic than anyone before her, tall, sinewy and regal, exuding charisma and self-confidence. Hesitant at first, he had found the nerve to speak to her at the end of a work-related function in a swanky downtown bar only thanks to a large dose of Dutch courage. It wasn't until she was alone that he'd made his way to her, sitting down at her table with a confidence that cost him every ounce of self-belief.

He had been looking at her from a distance for hours.

"May I?" His voice had been low and steady as he slid himself on the red sofa next to her, and she had turned her head, resting her cheek on a slender, beautiful wrist, red manicured nails framing her high cheekbones. Her eyebrow had arched, daring him to expose himself.

She was alone that night, and they'd got talking, and nothing more at first. Talk, talk, talk—she seemed never to want to stop. She had an opinion about everything: art, history, current affairs. Jasper had never met anyone like her, so outspoken and fearless, her accent betraying her foreign origins, her choice of words confirming her intelligence and top-class education.

He nodded, mesmerized by her voice and her smell and the way she came closer and closer, her hair falling in front of her face, shielding her, shielding them from the rest of the world.

He had been surprised and flattered when, at the end of that evening, after the bar had emptied around them and they found themselves surrounded by vacant chairs and abandoned glasses, she'd asked him for his number and told him she'd be in touch.

They had met again-in different, smaller bars in neighbourhoods he'd never set foot in-late at night on odd weekday evenings of her choice. Jasper had managed to catch snippets of her life—her age, somewhere past thirty; her profession, something to do with money and art; her relationship status, not completely unencumbered.

His days in Forks had been almost entirely consumed by thoughts of Maria, of how to get in touch, of when he would see her again, of why she didn't pick up her phone, why she wouldn't give him an email address, why she never called him back.

The distance his parents had witnessed was not imaginary, his restlessness profound and uncontainable.

Back in California, he called Maria for days—her cell phone always switched off, the automated message driving him insane, the absence of voicemail beyond the limits of what he thought he could endure.

He had given up hope of ever seeing her again, wondering if she'd been real at all, resigned that she had been just an early-summer night's dream, when his phone rang a little after one in the morning on a Wednesday night.

"Miss me, cowboy?" Her voice was sultry and smoky, and Jasper groaned under his breath, desire shooting through him like a painful bolt of electricity.

"Fuck. Maria. Where have you been?"

"Where do you live? Gimme your address," she demanded, cutting preliminaries, commanding and so decisive all of a sudden.

She appeared at his door thirty minutes later, her skin more tanned than he remembered it, her hair shorter, framing her face in soft glossy waves; smelling of expensive perfume and cigarettes.

He let her in, willing the trembling in his hands to subside.

"I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of being good," she whispered in his ear as she pushed him against the wall and pressed her body against him, making him shiver and stiffen.

"Let's be bad. Let's be really, really bad."

Jasper had tried to kiss her then, and she laughed, pushing him away, biting his neck in an almost painful way as she deflected him. He touched her everywhere, clumsily, desperately. She pushed him on the sofa and didn't even bother removing her clothes before climbing onto him, rubbing herself all over his groin; her skirt rode up and Jasper gasped, finding her naked underneath.

She laughed, a throaty laugh that left him breathless.

"Panties are for little girls, don't you think? And I ain't no little girl. So fuck me hard, cowboy, don't hold back."

Jasper felt a blind rage course through him at her taunting words, and he pulled his pants down angrily, sliding into her almost violently, willing to hurt her, but finding no resistance in her wet, wanting heat. He thrust as hard as he could, and she rode him wildly, hungrily, stealing an orgasm from him before he could even understand what was happening.

After it was all done, she stood and went to the bathroom to clean herself up. Jasper lay spent on the sofa, sweaty, an arm against his eyes, disorientated and empty, finding none of the triumph he thought he would feel, confused at the sense of shame and guilt that had descended over him.

When Maria re-emerged, she kissed him briefly on the lips before heading to the door.

"That was lovely. Let's do it again."

She was gone before he could reply, the loud purring of her expensive car resonating on the quiet street.

o o o

They did it again. Sporadically at first, then more frequently, then again only once in a while-Maria's calls dictating the rhyme and reason of their meetings. Sometimes they would fuck quickly, standing up in his hallway, or on his sofa, or in her car once or twice. But other times she'd stay behind after they'd made love in his bed and kept him awake with long rants on politics and female oppression and how it was all, inexorably, turning to shit.

Jasper had no idea what she was talking about. No idea whatsoever as to what they were doing together. No idea as to what his feelings were-lust, certainly, but he couldn't believe it could be so all consuming, so debilitating; possessiveness, perhaps, towards a woman who was so hell bent on giving away nothing of herself; jealousy, for sure, since there was almost certainly someone else, somewhere, in the bright light of day, who called her his own and laid claims to her body and soul; but sometimes, sometimes he wondered whether there was more.

Increasingly isolated, through the following fall and winter, incapable of holding on to friendships or relationships outside his all consuming obsession for Maria, Jasper wondered whether this hurt, this pain, this constant humiliating defeat against his self-control and dignity was what people called love.

Was he in love with Maria? Was this it? Was this heartache? Did she feel anything for him, outside her hunger for his body?

Jasper had no idea. Incapable of discussing his relationship with anyone—"You better not tell your friends about me, I'm not your girlfriend"-—he tortured himself with questions he didn't really want to find an answer to.

There was nothing romantic about what they did together—no dinners, no dates, no movies, no weekends away.

No declarations of loyalty, or devotion, or even friendship.

Sometimes she'd be with him for only minutes, before her phone—her damned, hated phone—pulled her away and back towards her life, her real life, where he didn't belong.

But sometimes he caught her staring, late at night, after he had dozed off, and when she saw he was awake, she gave him the gentlest of kisses and whispered foreign words in his hair: "Jasper... que guapo... cariño..." in a voice that was tinged with regret and nostalgia and a sweetness so alien it made him shiver and hope despite himself.

  
  



	8. Chapter 8

The summer she turned seventeen was the wettest in ten years in Washington State.

It was raining when she touched down in Seattle—at Charlie's insistence, so he could treat her to a weekend of indulgence in the big city: a real holiday, with sightseeing and a show and a surprisingly comfortable dinner with " _ Someone I'd like you to meet _ " in a downtown restaurant.

Charlie had introduced his girlfriend to Bella with an embarrassed mumble, but Siobhan had smiled broadly, hugging a stunned Bella in a voluptuous embrace and a cloud of citrusy perfume, her soft blonde hair tickling the younger girl's nose.

"Bella! So good to finally meet you!" She held Bella at arm's length and observed her with a sympathetic eye. "You're just as beautiful as your dad says you were." And "Gee, Charlie! You talk about her as though she's a little girl, but really… she's almost a woman!"

Ordinarily, Bella would have blushed at such a pronouncement, but Siobhan made being a woman sound like the biggest of praises, a genuine compliment, something to aspire to.

It was Charlie who blushed, then looked at his daughter and winked. He reached out for her arm and gently steered her towards a corner table, his other arm around Siobhan's waist.

They sat down to dinner, and it quickly became apparent to Bella that Charlie's culinary prowess the summer before had not been a coincidence; Siobhan ate and drank merrily, with gusto and abandonment, choosing the most adventurous items on the menu and encouraging her companions to do the same.

She even let Bella try her wine—"Honestly, sweetie, it would be a disgrace not to try it! Consider it education!"—when Charlie had excused himself to take a call outside.

Conspiratorial giggles accompanied his return to the table, and his heart swelled at seeing them both pink-cheeked, at ease, laughing- even if it was, he was almost sure, about him.

"So… where did you two meet?" Bella asked, overwhelmed by curiosity at the unlikely, yet somehow miraculously perfect match.

Charlie coughed, but Siobhan didn't miss a beat.

"Oh, we met online." Then, amused by Bella's raised eyebrows, "On the  _ Times' _ site, to be precise." Siobhan laughed. "Charlie saw my ad… and the rest is history."

She winked and leaned into him, kissing him teasingly but affectionately on the tip of his nose.

o o o

It was raining when she arrived in Forks, late at night, half-asleep in the passenger's seat of her father's car, sharing in the maudlin mood that had overtaken Charlie at leaving Siobhan in Seattle.

o o o

The next afternoon, Bella drove through the rain to the Cullen's - the road dark under the heavy gray sky and the thick canopy of trees.

Esme opened the door for her, welcoming her with a genuine, delighted smile. She reached out to run a hand through her hair.

"I like it longer." Bella ducked her head, cherishing the intimacy of her gesture and her words. She'd missed Esme.

"Are the guys home?"

"Seth's upstairs, though you'll have to knock; he's probably got his headphones on. He's in Jasper's old room now." She paused. "Edward's… out, somewhere. Should be back before dinner." She smiled again, shaking her head slightly. "You'll stay? Eat with us? I'm sure Carlisle would love to see you, too."

Bella nodded as she climbed up the stairs.

o o o

It was to the sound of incessant rain hitting the window panes that she sat down on Seth's bed, kicking her boots off, taking in the mess and the life that pervaded his space—clothes, books, a tennis racket, his bed unmade, the blinds half drawn.

"This place stinks." She teased him with a foot, and he shrugged.

"Smells fine to me."

Seth threw a ball at her, then laughed when she failed to catch it.

"You're such a  _ girl _ !"

"You say that like it's a  _ bad _ thing."

Edward walked in minutes later, his hair soaking wet, barefoot, the hems of his jeans frayed and muddy. When he finally looked at Bella, he found her smiling at him, mouthing a silent "Hey", and he smiled back, the briefest, most fleeting of sun rays before his customary mask of indifference slipped back into place; and Bella, who had not had a whole year to get acquainted with this new, hardened expression of his, felt a new distance set itself between them, something that wasn't there before, something that hurt just a little bit.

"I got tickets," Edward finally announced, breaking the awkward silence.

Seth rolled his eyes.

"Seriously, E? Seriously? We talked about this. You should have asked first."

"What? Tickets to what?" Bella asked, confused at the exchange.

Edward dug an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Bella. She frowned, unsure of what she was holding.

"Come on, Bella!" Edward shook her shoulders, suddenly animated. "It's only the most awesome music festival in the Northwest! Get excited!"

"First weekend of August," she stated dumbly, staring at the dates. "Three tickets. Is the third ticket for me?"

"Course it is! Who else would it be for?"

Seth flopped back onto his bed and started listing names of bands Bella had never heard of. "Eddie boy here has been talking about it for months."

"Edward?" She walked back to him, handing back the precious tickets, trying to keep her voice as soft and gentle as she could, for she knew her friend's ego bruised easily, "I'm not sure about this… I mean… you could have asked before buying them. They're so expensive. What if Charlie says no?"

"What if  _ Carlisle _ says no," piped in Seth, raising his eyebrows at his brother.

"They'll say yes, if we all go together. You have to come." He turned to look at Bella, his eyes suddenly on hers, open, pleading. "Please."

o o o

Carlisle said yes, because, as Edward had predicted, Bella's presence was a guarantee of good behavior and sensible decisions in his eyes-and also because Esme's tacit approval had already been given.

Charlie said yes, because he'd learned years ago that he had lost all power to say otherwise as far as his daughter was concerned. But he insisted, much to the kids' dismay, that he'd drive them down there himself, as the roads were muddy and the festival site off the beaten path; and he set that down as his only condition, so they had no choice but to accept the lift.

In reality, Charlie wanted to see for himself what a festival looked like, convinced, somehow, that he could change his mind at the last minute if he didn't like the feel of it and drag them all back to Forks. Besides, he needed one more chance to look his daughter in the eye and make her promise she would not drink or take drugs, or do anything else illegal, immoral or just plain stupid.

In the end, all that Charlie could discern once they got there was what appeared to be a very large, rather mucky campsite, and his biggest worry at that stage was whether the tent they'd packed was watertight. Sighing, he looked on as the three kids sauntered away in knee-high rain boots and short, heavy backpacks on their shoulders, before they were lost within the colorful, cheerful crowd.

o o o

The next three days were a revelation; music blared from the four different stages at all hours of the day and night, and the crowd swayed and ebbed around them like a river of joy.

Holding hands, dancing wildly, laughing like they'd not done since they were thirteen, Seth, Edward and Bella felt alive and on top of the world: free, independent, grown-up, yet hungry and jubilant like they thought no one before them had ever been and no one after them could ever be.

Over the course of seventy-two exhilarating hours, they wandered the huge site, making friends, making promises, making memories. They found strength in each other, yet they let themselves tread the individual paths that were calling out to them.

Seth lost his virginity, late one night while a wild Ska beat filled the sky, to a fierce college sophomore from Seattle called Kate, whom he'd come clean to about his age and inexperienced status and disarmed with the bravest of words: "Teach me everything."

Laughing like she'd hit the jackpot, Kate took him back to her tent and proceeded to do just that.

He woke her up just after dawn. "Let's do it again."

"This time let's take it easy, okay? It's not a race, you don't win if you come first."

Kate saw him off into the grey morning, gave him her number and, trying to play it cool, made him promise he'd go see her after he'd practiced a few more rounds. Seth winked and turned around.

"But not too much!" she yelled as he walked away.

"What?" Seth turned around and walked back to her, bending his knees to look into her eyes—she was tiny, barely reaching his chin. "Not too much what?"

His eyes danced, his lips tingled, and Kate lost her mind.

"Don't practice too much. In fact, don't practice at all. Just... just call me, okay? I..."

She hadn't been able to finish the sentence, as Seth kissed her long and hard, enthusiastically and clumsily, as all early kisses should be, his heart beating wildly, her number safely tucked into his wallet.

o o o

Edward focused entirely on the music; it was the reason why he'd come here, after all. He was right there, right in the mosh pit at every concert, dancing bare-chested in the rain, feeling like he might combust with energy. This. This was the life he wanted—music, and open air, and crowds, crowds all around him.

And backstage, one night, in a cloud of thick, sweet weed smoke—the beginning of a lifelong love affair for him—he played guitar with people for whom guitar was a calling and a profession. He realized that this was his calling, too—all he had to do was grab it.

o o o

Bella took it all in—the sights, the smells, the sounds. She wandered the stalls and talked to everyone—gleaning information about everything from weaving to recycling to spiritual midwifery, running soft silks through her fingers and taking hours to choose a single, plain silver ring which she slid on her left thumb, liking the way it looked lonely, out of place, the only ornament on her entire body.

On Saturday afternoon, under a shy, surprising sun, she made out with a boy called Riley who kept telling her she tasted of strawberries and couldn't stop running his tongue down her neck, making her giggle then yelp when he kissed her so hard she was sure he drew blood. Later, when she rejoined Seth and Edward, she saw them looking at her neck in the weirdest way, unable to shift their eyes.

Her hand flew to the spot, which still felt tender from where Riley had kissed her.

"Nice hickey," snorted Seth. Then he started to tickle her on her belly before she could get embarrassed. Edward just shook his head and walked away. He couldn't tell why the sight of Bella's bruised neck upset him so; perhaps it was the fact that she seemed so casual about it; perhaps it was because she looked already so different from the way she'd been just that morning.

"Edward! Wait!" They ran after him, catching up and teasing him for being so emo. They jumped in the muddy puddles on the path, laughing wildly, running past the food carts and the children's area, until they stopped in front of the most enticing of all makeshift shops.

They stood still, daring each other, gathering courage.

Bella spoke first, before the others could make up their minds.

"Let's get a tattoo,"

"Yeah, but what?" Seth was more dubious, fearing the pain, or perhaps the finality.

"Our initials," Edward said as he walked in, leading the way. "Each others'," he clarified as he gestured for them to follow.

And so it was that each of them came to wear a small, unassuming symbol on their left shoulder blade, bearing the other two's initials-the same, but different, like a grown-up version of the friendship bracelets they'd exchanged at fourteen. Bella relished the burning, bruising sensation, thinking proudly that she'd always have something of them with her—an "E" and an "S", neatly entwined—while her "B" was marked forever on their skin.

They were on top of the world.

o o o

It all came to an end too soon on Sunday afternoon: tents were dismantled, stages disassembled, the ground left behind dirty and bruised.

Bella, Seth, and Edward waited for Charlie, as agreed, at the nearest gas station. To their surprise, however, it wasn't Bella's father who showed up to collect them, but Jasper in Esme's old Volvo. He opened the door and got out, standing next to the car, tilting his head ever so slightly in greeting.

Edward and Seth could barely hide their excitement.

"Hey!" They ran up to their older brother, like puppies eager for recognition. "What's up, dude! How come you're here?"

"Charlie and Carlisle got called in for an emergency at the hospital and Esme had some work to do," was all Jasper offered by way of explanation. "Lucky I was in town to come and be your personal chauffeur."

He patted his brothers on the back, then acknowledged Bella with a nod.

Seth and Edward climbed into the back of the car, more out of habit than gallantry—this was, after all, the car of their childhood— and Bella awkwardly placed herself in the front seat.

"Had a nice time?" asked Jasper, distractedly, as he pulled out of the parking lot. His brothers answered back at once, talking excitedly, exaggerating wildly for his benefit. Bella stayed silent, not sure whether the question had been meant to include her and unsure, anyway, of how she should respond.

"You guys smell terrible," he chuckled, looking at his brothers in the rearview mirror.

Bella blushed, incapable of avoiding the feeling that the comment was somehow directed at her. As she clicked her seatbelt, she was suddenly hyper-aware of her appearance and flushed with embarrassment at sitting so close to Jasper Cullen.

In the back, the twins fell asleep almost instantly, but Bella was tense and uncomfortable, unsure as to whether she should make small talk with this guy—who should be familiar like the rest of the Cullens, but was in fact a complete stranger; who should be accessible, but looked so adult and distant, in his crisp white shirt and dark jeans, with his long, shaggy hair and stubble-covered cheeks, dark circles under his eyes and a hard, grim set to his jaw.

She looked at her feet, dirty and muddy in her rubber flip-flops; her legs, bruised and scraped in those too-short shorts she now tried unsuccessfully to pull down so her thighs wouldn't be so exposed. She felt her hair, matted and unwashed, weighing a ton on her head, and hastily pulled it back in a pony tail; then remembered, too late, about that horrid mark on her neck which was now in full view of Jasper.

As he turned to her and smiled politely, Bella's eyes met his and she saw him again as he had been years before, in the flickering lights of the TV, in her darkened living room, when he'd caught her staring at him and Leah: the embarrassment she'd felt then came back, multiplied tenfold, together with the long-forgotten lesson she'd blackmailed her babysitter into imparting back then. And those words then merged with another memory, of secrets whispered in a tent a few years later and she realized, horrified, that she knew way more about Jasper Cullen than she had any right to.

She was sure that if one could pass out from shame, she would.

She tried to rise to the occasion, to initiate conversation, but no topics came to her, so she stayed silent, chewing her nails, hoping he would just ignore her for the next three felt strangely, overwhelmingly bereft at the thought that he would probably do exactly that. Next to Jasper, Bella felt young, so young, and insignificant, inexperienced, ridiculous; her heart beat wildly in her chest, and she wished she could shroud herself in a shield of invisibility to get through this trip.

Jasper was quiet, driving as if lost in thought, seemingly unaware of her presence, in a way that unnerved her and set her on edge.

Hear mind screamed " _ Please don't look at me _ !" but the tight knot in her chest told of a different, viscerally opposed desire.

At first, Jasper was barely aware of her discomfort. In fact, he'd scarcely spared her a look, lost in the state of sullen detachment he'd gotten used to over the past few months. He had registered her presence fleetingly, distractedly, only vaguely aware that she was there, silently burning next to him.

It wasn't until well into the second hour of the trip that she had seeped into his full consciousness, and he realized with a start that he wasn't in fact alone and that he was being a complete asshole to his brothers' friend.

He turned to look at her then and surprised himself with the first thought that came into his head:  _ Cute kid _ . She was looking outside the passenger's window, so all he could see at first was the curve of her neck—and a gigantic hickey; he wondered, briefly, to which of his brothers she owed the honor and made a mental note to have a stern word with them about how uncool and juvenile it was to do that to your girlfriend. The ugly, purple bruise marred her otherwise unblemished skin, eliciting an unexpected anger in Jasper; his eyes lingered a second too long and, as if she could read his thoughts, Bella's hand flew to her neck, and she snapped back to him, brown eyes wide and a bit scared, blushing.

Jasper sensed her discomfort, and immediately wished to ease it.

"Nice ring," he said, his lips moved by the faintest hint of a smile as he motioned to the thin silver band on her thumb.

"Oh… thanks." Bella grabbed the ring, twisting it around and holding on to it as if it was an anchor capable of grounding her.

"Let's play some music, okay?" Jasper spoke low and guarded, yet Bella appreciated the kindness in his words, his efforts to put her at ease. "Or have you heard enough to last you the rest of your life?"

"No, music's cool." Bella hated the sound of her own voice, so croaky and childish, so timid. Such a contrast to his deep, low tone.

She shifted in her seat and crossed her legs, and Jasper noted that they were long and surprisingly toned, and he wished he had looked at her more carefully earlier-hard to tell how tall she was, sitting down; hard to tell how those beautiful legs carried her-elegantly and confidently or awkwardly, falteringly. It was maddening to him that he was suddenly consumed with the necessity to find out things about Bella Swan.

He forced his eyes away back on the road, wanting to avoid embarrassing her with his lingering stares, but his mind was now alight with new thoughts and old memories.

He remembered swimming with her a few summers before. He remembered how strong and fast she had been as a kid , how he'd had to exert himself to catch up with her, and it amazed himhow incredibly clear the memory of that evening was. It was etched in his brain like a slow-motion movie. He wondered whether she swam still, whether she was fast and strong and unnervingly independent like the little girl from that golden evening long ago.

Could she had really been a kid? Already the memory was morphing, distorting to embrace the young woman next to him, merging with reality, so that Jasper had the sudden, unnerving sensation that he had already met her, not as she was back then but as she was now, and that it had been a mere days, not years ago.

He thought, that perhaps in another life, in another place, had he been a different guy, he'd have liked to get to know this almost grown-up Bella Swan, to tease her gently, to flirt with her perhaps, innocently, teasingly, taking his cues from her.

He wondered what it would take to see her blush with secret, whispered words of lust and desire and then to make that blush disappear with the sweetest of kisses. To shock her and soothe her; to ignite her.

He pictured reaching out to her now, placing a hand on her knee, stilling her nervous movement, feeling the warmth of her skin, tracing the edges of her bones and muscle, brushing her calves gently till her breathing changed and her eyes met his not skittishly as they were doing now, but openly, pleadingly.

He wondered what she looked like when she really smiled—whether she laughed often, and what made her features come alive with excitement and purpose. How hard would it be to find out?

The air within the confined space had changed- charged with a tension that was dense and hypnotic. Jasper recognized it at once- stunning himself with how quickly and unequivocally mutual attraction had manifested itself. For there was no doubt that what he felt was attraction-silent, instinctual, overwhelming in its unexpectedness.

It wasn't hard, however, to realize that Bella had no way of reading the situation-that she was lost, adrift in this confusing, viscous storm of conflicting emotions. She played with her hair, chewed her nails then finally put her hands between her legs, in an effort, no doubt, to keep them still; completely unaware that her new position only managed to draw more attention to what she was trying to hide.

Her discomfort made Jasper sure she had no idea how lovely she looked, fidgety and flushed, unwashed and exhausted. He was sure, sure no one had ever told her that the way she moved was tantalizing, that her obvious innocence was terrifying.

How old was she? His brothers's age... seventeen, he guessed. So young.

Before he could let this train of thought and feeling run its course, before the warmth from this sudden, unexpected desire could spread from his heart to his nerves, to his brain, bringing them to life, making them tingle; before he could truly come awake with the possibility, the customary vice-like grip on his soul tightened and stopped him.

The familiar dull hollowness quickly refilled every crevice and fiber of his being.

For Jasper knew he was not free. He was not in charge of his heart or desires. Much as he'd tried to break away, to leave it all behind, more than once—constantly, in fact, it seemed to him—his life still revolved around his obsession with Maria.

_Maria._

Her name came to him like a jolt of electricity.

Maria who left him and told him not to call her.

Maria who ran back to her husband and smiled next to him on the pages of glossy magazines.

Maria who showed up at his house, late at night, drunk, crying, begging.

Maria who called from Barcelona or Beijing and whispered hoarse, sweet, obscene words.

Maria who used him like a drug and discarded him like a dirty needle and could never, ever stop herself from doing it all over again.

Maria, who—even thousands of miles away, even when she didn't know or didn't care—controlled his every breath, his every thought, his every action.

Maria to whom he kept surrendering his soul, his life, his dignity.

He let himself be sullied by her; he felt dirty, corrupted; unworthy of beauty and purity.

Jasper was not free, and never before had he felt it so clearly and so devastatingly.

He kept staring at the road ahead, driving slowly, only the sound of music filling the car.

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

The summer she turned eighteen Bella did not go to Forks.

On a late May morning her alarm rang at 5:30 a.m., like every other day, rousing her to hit the pool before class.

And yet, contrary to every other day, Bella barely managed to get out of bed. Her throat was sore; her limbs ached and weighed her down painfully, and she felt cold and shivery despite the intense, oppressive heat she could already sense outside.

Fighting against her body, mustering every ounce of strength and determination she possessed, she dragged herself to practice, and for the first time in her life the impact of water on her body was so unpleasant as to be almost excruciating. As she lowered herself into the pool, the liquid around her felt like lead, viscous and heavy, the effort required to propel herself forward, inhuman. Fatigue invaded every fiber of her being, gradually spreading from her hands and feet to her legs and shoulders until the very core of her being felt paralyzed.

She swam three agonizing lengths, oblivious to the noise around her, focusing only on the next inch, the next yard, the end of the swimming pool ahead.

But finally, when it all became too much, almost blindly, she got out of the pool and collapsed, shivering on the spectators' benches, amid a pile of wet towels and discarded goggles, the heavy chlorinated air clinging to her like a second skin.

She didn't remember much after that-only that she didn't go to school afterwards; that Renee came to pick her up and drove her home, where she climbed into bed and fell into a deep, heavy, narcotic-like sleep.

Two days later, when the fever would not abate and her mother finally became concerned at her brief surfaces into consciousness, a doctor was called, who swabbed her throat and took some blood.

"Just a bout of mono," he said, his manner dismissive and matter of fact. "A couple of weeks of bed rest and she'll be as good as new."

Renee teased her gently about the kissing disease, oblivious to Bella's sad eyes on hearing the words, because no pleasure had been associated to the acquisition of this particular virus.

"It's not like that, Mom," she mumbled, vaguely embarrassed, as she laid her head back down on her pillow. "I wish."

She was asleep before Renee had had the time to apologize and soothe her.

o o o

In the weeks that followed, as her classmates got to throw their caps in the air and shout joyously on graduation day, as they celebrated the end of their high school career at loud, sloppy parties with illegal booze and mediocre music, Bella lay in bed-the blinds drawn, her head sore, and her muscles aching with a tiredness she had not believed possible.

Two weeks merged into a month, and the fever and the sore throat disappeared, as promised; but the incapacitating fog of fatigue did not lift. The doctor visited again, less flippant this time.

"It sometimes takes a bit longer to resolve," he said, not meeting Bella's eyes, "it happens."

"How long?" Renee pressed, "and why? What can we do to speed it up?"

"Just wait. Just wait and rest," the short man shrugged and made for the exit.

o o o

A month became two, and the dry desert summer burnt the ground and filled the sky with its hazy, dusty glare; but in her darkened bedroom, Bella was always cold.

No longer bedridden, but never far from it, she experienced for the first time in her life what it meant to be perfectly still, completely inactive. She had been, until then, entirely driven by the physical needs of her body—joints and ligaments and adrenaline, and an instinctive need to move, to sprint, to rush through her life at full speed, to obliterate thoughts and feelings into action. But she looked down at her legs and hands now and barely recognized them as her own: so much weight was falling off her, leaving her feeling weak, unprotected, brand new.

She was forced to find respite inside her head, and in the slow, warped consciousness of her convalescence she found questions she did not know existed, and thoughts she had never thought could form inside her brain. So often she found herself waking from sleep she did not remember having fallen into, confused images whirling just behind her eyes, and she could not discern whether they were dreams or conscious rational processes. It was not an entirely unpleasant experience and she figured that perhaps this is what being on drugs felt like: leaving your body, experiencing dreams as though they were real and reality as though it was simply an illusion

But most of all, she thought about herself: about who she had been, about what she had wanted. She summoned up the facts she knew about herself, and their paucity and stark simplicity scared her.

She was Isabella Swan, only child of divorced parents, stepdaughter of Phil Dwyer.

Arizona High School swimming champion with a 4.1 GPA which she'd almost lost her mind in order to achieve.

Liked by most, but friend of few, and loved by fewer

Virgin.

These facts danced around her head, leaving trails of loneliness behind. For this, the summer when she had planned finally to conquer it all—her reserve, her diffidence towards boys, her fear of change—was drawing to a close, and nothing had changed, except to entrench all of them more deeply and, it seemed to her, more permanently into her personality- to the point where she wondered whether she was going to remain frozen in this late-adolescence state, incapable of moving forward, untouched, getting more alone and melancholic as the months and years went by.

Gradually her phone stopped ringing, the initial flurry of inquiries from classmates and teammates and anxious coaches gradually dwindling down to a small pitiful trickle, until they stopped completely as everyone moved on, to college and jobs and new towns and adventures.

At the beginning of the summer Seth and Edward had messaged her almost daily-sending inks to songs and videos and the most surreal cartoons, and asking when she would come, when she'd be there.

Her responses had been short, in part because of her weakness but also out of reluctance to disclose the details of her illness besides some generic headlines.

Gradually their messages also became more sporadic and erratic. Bella kept up with their progress on Facebook, and learned of Seth's excitement over moving to Seattle and his friends' jibes at his chosen major-Forest Management- and of Edward's plans to take a year off and "f _ ind himself, if nothing else _ ". It was a source of solace to still feel somehow part of their lives, albeit passively, from a distance. But it hurt that she couldn't hear of it from them, in their words, addressed only to her.

o o o

Two months merged into three, and still Bella existed in a limbo of exhaustion and grey indistinct feelings.

Renee talked to her, but she didn't hear a word.

Charlie flew down to Phoenix, sat in her room, in a stranger's house, held her hand with a shy, yet secure grip as tears streamed down her face; with her father there Bella finally felt that she could give in to her fear, to the terror she felt when what she had looked forward to was no longer a sure thing.

"It will get better, Bells." His voice betrayed his concern and yet managed to convey an authority that, Bella recognized, was the result of years of professional dealings with sick, scared people. "Sometimes it just takes a bit longer, you know. We're all different. Just take it easy for a while longer. It's okay to rest some more, sweetie."

Bella nodded and Charlie squeezed her hand harder, encouraging her to let the words out.

"Dad… college..." it was a strangled whisper, and only her father's huge, expectant eyes gave her the strength to go on. "I can't go, Dad."

"It's okay, sweetie. Not now, maybe, but you'll go. There's time for that. Don't worry, you have all the time in the world."

He held her in his arms and rocked her gently, shushing her, as he had done when she was little and upset over losing a soccer game.

o o o

That evening she finally accepted that she had to let go of her University of Arizona athletic scholarship. While it had not been withdrawn outright, the pressure she'd been under over the past few days to give a firm date for getting back into training had been enough to convince her that this was no longer an option: she was not ready to go back into the water, and did not know when she would be, if ever.

With a mix of disappointment and relief, Bella closed the door on that chapter of her life.

She sat at the dinner table with her mother, her father and her stepfather, amazed at how they'd all come together, relieved and immensely grateful that, despite everything, she had her family who cared and had been thinking and planning and worrying about her.

She learned with amazement that her father and Phil had talked, long and in detail, about her and her future.

"Don't worry about money for college Bella." Charlie had told her. "The money is there. We've got it covered." Phil had nodded, too, and Renee had proudly started listing off colleges that took deferred acceptance in January, evidence of detailed and focused research Bella didn't think her mother capable of.

"You just take your time getting better, Bells."

o o o

Three months turned into four, and some of the fog lifted, if not from her body, at least from her mind and soul; still incapable of strenuous activity, Bella was at least able to concentrate and focus for longer than twenty minutes at a time. She discovered a joy of reading, of watching obscure movies, of savoring music and allowing herself to sink deeper and deeper into herself. The dreamlike quality of her thoughts remained, but softened, and it felt amazing to be able to follow a thread in her head, like a ball of wool, follow it to its conclusions that sometimes seem to mean nothing at all, and other times revealed reality in stark colors and unexpected combinations.

Memories of her past came back to her, surprising her with what her subconscious had retained and was now throwing back at her: Forks featured prominently, Edward and Seth and so many moments from her childhood; Esme's kitchen, which smelled and felt like home in a way that her own home never did; and finally, Jasper's car, the intensity of his stare, his deep voice during that car trip the previous year, and how she had felt sitting next to him, the way her heart had leapt and her skin had vibrated with alertness, the adrenaline that had felt so much like the first few seconds before a race, those eternal moments before diving in, when you already knew, deep down, whether you were going to win or not.

Late at night she wondered where he was, what he was doing. She remembered he was in law school in California, and she thought, with a pang of regret, that she was probably never going to see him again.

o o o

Four months turned into five, and she ventured outside, taking short strolls at first, then progressively longer walks, Renee unusually at her side; mother and daughter discovered each other then, in those slow, unstructured days where no schedules or commitments or engagements forced either of them to get away from each other.

Bella felt like a little girl again, needy of affection and encouragement, and Renee was grateful to provide it, hugging her often, tucking her hair behind her ears, cooking her favorite foods and covering her with an afghan when she fell asleep on the sofa.

o o o

Five months turned into six and Bella looked in the mirror one morning, getting ready to leave. Her hair was longer, softer and glossier now that it was not subjected to the daily assault of the pool's chemicals anymore; her body so much thinner and softer than it had ever been, her jeans hanging loosely from her hips, her sweater baggy around her arms; her cheekbones and lips, it seemed to her, so much more prominent than they'd ever been.

The girl who stared back at her was feminine and delicate, and Bella couldn't help but smile, remembering how she'd been self-conscious about her athletic build and chubby, childish cheeks.

"Be careful what you wish for," she murmured as she locked her suitcase—filled mostly with new clothes, still tagged, that Renee had bought her in a last minute bout of lavishness and new books that she could not wait to read.

"You sure, baby?" her mother asked, and she nodded, smiling indulgently at what she recognised was an unspoken request to stay.

"Yeah, Mom. Come on, we talked about this. Dad will take good care of me. And you gotta get back on the campaign trail with Phil. Don't worry."

On the eight of December, Bella flew to Forks to find a winter she was not used to and empty, unknown weeks ahead of her.

  
  


Earlier that year, on a late May morning Carlisle and Esme had gotten on a plane headed to Los Angeles.

So much preparation had gone into this journey, so much thought into booking flights and hotels and choosing outfits and trimming and styling her hair in a way that, Esme hoped, would not look out of place in sunny, trendy California. So much trepidation had accompanied them as they touched down on the tarmac and boarded their taxi; so much anticipation as they had made their way to the auditorium where their eldest son would graduate Law School.

They sat, tense and emotional, through the speeches and the roll-call and the arctic AC that made Esme shiver in her too-thin dress. They stole glances at other candidates' relatives nearby—parents and grandparents, siblings, spouses, a few young children sitting on a radiant parent's lap. Pride and relief vibrated through the auditorium, and as each student took the stage to collect their diploma and their handshake, Esme imagined what their future held, where their pasts would take them.

When Jasper's turn came, she clasped her husband's hand tight, cursing the distance that prevented her from really seeing his face. He strolled on the stage with sure, fast steps, his tall body carrying the gown with grace, blond curls peeking out from under the cap. He shook the dean's hand and walked off in a rush, as if trying to escape the spotlight as quickly as he could, his shoulders hunched in a way that was at odds with the joyous moment and sent a wave of unease through his mother's subconscious.

Afterwards, they pushed their way through the crowd to find him standing slightly apart in polite conversation with a member of the faculty. Esme hugged him tight and whispered "I'm so proud of you, sweetie!" in his hair, holding him a moment too long. Carlisle's hug was more restrained, conscious of the stranger nearby.

Esme didn't let go of her son's arm, leaning into him as introductions were made.

"Your son will go far," Professor Clapp said. "He is hard-working and determined, analytical. But I'm sure you know that."

"Thank you. We have no doubt." Carlisle answered politely, directing a proud smile at Jasper.

Esme listened, uneasy, her eyes straining to look away from the self-important man in front of her and to search her son's face, anxious to see him smile, to see traces of his own pride, of his own accomplishment. When they were finally left alone she was shocked to see that she found none and that, up close, Jasper looked tired and drawn, dark purple circles under his eyes, his lips pale, barely capable of lifting into a smile and murmuring words of congratulations and thanks to his fellow graduates. The effort behind these simple gestures, that should have been spontaneous, seemed to take an inhuman toll on him, as if he was simply too tired to move and talk.

He was so beautiful, Esme thought—so handsome, his features so similar to those of a younger Carlisle. She wondered why she'd never noticed before.

And yet, she remembered Carlisle at twenty-four. It was the year they'd met, and he was carefree and enthusiastic, constantly cracking silly jokes, looking boyish and innocent with his badly cut hair and dorky t-shirts, full of energy and optimism despite the strain of Med school and the burden of money troubles and his overbearing family. On the day he graduated, he had jumped up and down like a child, then hijacked the celebrations his mother had organized by loudly and drunkenly asking Esme to marry him.

Her son, by comparison, looked ten years older, a strange, inexplicable bitterness clinging to him like a stale smell.

She couldn't stop looking at him as they drove to a downtown restaurant—a swanky, trendy place where she was sure she was the only woman above forty who hadn't had plastic surgery. Carlisle had asked Jasper whether he wanted to invite someone else for lunch, but he had declined with a distracted nod, and so it was just the three of them in a corner table, perusing the complicated looking menu and the extensive wine list.

"So… what's good here?" asked Carlisle, out of a desire to start the conversation as much as irritation with the menu.

They ordered the filet mignon and an exorbitantly expensive bottle of red wine, and conversation was stilted, relying almost entirely on Esme's efforts. Jasper seemed distant, jerky, his hands constantly fidgeting with the napkin or his phone, refilling his glass often, refusing to meet his mother's eyes, answering mechanically to his father's questions about his plans, talking fast, too fast to avoid more questions, terrified of them hitting too close to his soft, vulnerable core.

So much planning, and yet nothing could have prepared Esme and Carlisle for the jarring, disorienting sensation of a celebration gone terribly wrong. It was an empty, sagging feeling that dragged them down on the way back to the airport, exhausted, pride worn thin and excitement evaporated.

"Well, that was not what I expected," she said as the plane started rolling on the tarmac.

"It never is, Esme. It never is."

o o o

Jasper saw them off, relieved and disheartened at the same time: relieved because he was finally out of the spotlight, and he thought he had fooled them, perhaps, just enough to convince them everything was okay; disheartened because nothing, nothing at all was okay.

He went back to his flat and called Maria, not surprised when it went straight to voicemail.

He showered, getting himself off quickly and angrily, and called her again, unsuccessfully, again.

This time, he left a message.

"Yeah. It's me. Jasper, remember?" He paused, regretting it already. "Whatever. Call me back. Or not. Do whatever the fuck you want, Maria."

He slammed the phone shut and paced his living room, feeling a rising fury, wanting it gone, wanting it all gone- the anger and the humiliation and this fucking, suffocating, nefarious loneliness that he could no longer tolerate.

He was supposed to celebrate tonight-it was a happy day, right? He had the degree, what he had wanted, what would make him happy, right? A job to go into first thing on Monday morning, James having already called at least ten times, asking him to prep, giving him topics to research, anxious that he'd hit the ground running.

The thought made Jasper nauseous. He had never, never stopped, he thought, in the last five years, not since Europe: work and school and work and school and why, he thought, why did he have to do everything so fast? What was the point? What was the price? He had left so much behind, barely remembered having any fun at all, barely remembering faces other than one, which was now out of reach.

Maria had filled the voids in his life, or perhaps she'd driven everything else out, creating the voids; he wasn't sure now. And where was she? Why the fuck did she not answer? He hadn't seen her in weeks, and he thought the nervous energy would kill him if he didn't get to see her, to touch her, to hear her scream angry obscenities and then tearfully apologize and kiss him in that possessive, hungry way of hers.

And fuck, tonight, of all nights, she could fucking answer her phone, couldn't she? She knew what day it knew it was a day of celebration for him.

Jasper laughed to himself, the sound deafening in the empty flat. Yes! Celebrate, that's what he needed to do. He drove to the liquor store and picked up a bottle of champagne and a bottle of whiskey for good measure.

In less than an hour he was drunk; by eleven, he was asleep on his couch.

His phone never rang.

o o o

The next few weeks went by in a haze.

The routine of work established itself quickly and quickly permeated every minute of Jasper's life. Without the excitement that came with the novelty of his internship, without the modicum of detachment that the temporary contract had brought to him over the previous summers, corporate life revealed itself for what it was: the gloss really only a very thin veneer holding together a world of sweat and clenched teeth, of endless hours spent in recycled air, of horizons progressively shrinking till all he could see were the grey walls of his cubicle and his greatest aspiration was a window—to see, at least to see, if not to feel, the warm sunshine and the long days of summer just outside.

He woke up early and went to bed late, the maddeningly slow rides to work in the choked-up traffic the only interlude between house and office, a rushed beer with a co-worker who could only really meet his eyes after two or three drinks the only interval to the monotony.

He had a degree now, yes, sure, but it was still not enough. He had a good salary, finally some money, but ne more step, one more obstacle lay ahead, and Jasper wondered where the time and energy to study for the bar exam would come from. The effort required seemed overwhelming.

In the meantime, his work remained tedious, removed from the actual actions, away from clients and courtrooms—but owing to his graduate status, the expectations multiplied and supervision disappeared, leaving Jasper feeling exposed in a way he never had, and experiencing self-doubt and its companion, stress, for the first time in his academic and professional life.

o o o

And still, his phone never rang with the number he wanted, and his calls went unanswered. It was as though Maria had disappeared from the face of the earth without a word, and little by little Jasper let go of the idea that he would ever see her again, till one morning he woke up and he realised that she was gone, for good.

He grimaced in the mirror as he shaved— _ free _ , he thought.  _ I'm free of Maria _ .

But there was no relief in this realization, for what was left behind was too painful to contemplate—a hollowness where his emotions should have been; a soul stripped bare of its defences, painfully aware of its vulnerability; a fear that, like all addicts, he would never really stop craving what he had given up.

He switched off his phone and lost his charger, not bothering to replace it, reluctant to power it up again out of fear that his rejection would be confirmed or an instinctual sense of self-preservation should Maria ever ring again-he couldn't tell.

Days blurred into each other, Sundays into Mondays, summer into a mild, gentle Californian fall; work and loneliness, alcohol and heavy, fitful sleep. Emails unread, meals forgotten, and under it all the call of the sirens, the temptation to let himself just float away in this sea of numbness, to embrace the silence that everyday seemed more seductive.

o o o

"I'm worried, Carlisle." Esme had been tossing and turning in bed for almost an hour.

Summer had been a blur of activity and planning, the twins consuming all her attention and energy. Not so much Seth, who seemed as usual untroubled and certain of his choices, secretly delighting his parents at his obvious desire to stay close to home. But Edward had been a source of worry, having adamantly refused to go to college and determined to move East with a -crystal-clear to him, but terrifyingly vague to his parents - plan of making music.

Endless arguments had filled their days and evenings, Carlisle being pushed to the edge of his patience.

"Edward, come on, be reasonable. You can't move to New York without a job or a plan."

But Edward had simply shrugged.

"I'll make plans once I see what's out there."

At the end his parents had had to put faith in his seemingly unwavering confidence that good things were going to happen to him and to his guitar, and agreed to pay his airfare in return for a promise that he'll reconsider college in a year's time.

But now they they were both gone and settled, each in their own way, Esme's mind and heart seemed to gravitate more and more towards her eldest son, and tonight anxiety clung to her like a parasite.

All day today she'd been trying to get through to Jasper—calling every hour, caution and respect for personal boundaries thrown to the wind. Their regular Sunday night call had gradually become bi-weekly over the summer. It was now mid-November and they hadn't heard from him in almost a month.

Carlisle rolled onto his back and threw an arm towards his wife blindly, hitting her thigh and patting her gently twice—the most comfort he could offer while still, technically, asleep.

"We haven't spoken to him in weeks, Carlisle.  _ Weeks _ !" Esme continued, her voice rising now, determined to rouse her husband. "His phone is always off; he doesn't answer emails, I mean he was always a taciturn boy but this… this is extreme, even for him!"

Carlisle finally sat up, rubbing his eyes, and pulled Esme into his arms. Although naturally an optimist inclined to always believe the best, his wife's apprehension was making him nervous, igniting an alarm bell of sorts. Still, he tried to soothe her nerves, to rationalize Jasper's behavior.

"He's probably just busy, you know… these law firms are tough. He's probably just working a lot. You worry too much."

Esme grabbed his hand and held it firmly.

"Of course I worry too much! I'm his mother! "I don't know." She paused, remembering his graduation day. "It's just that the last time we saw him... he seemed so sad, so lost... I just wish we could talk to him, see him perhaps. You know?"

"I know." Carlisle spoke quietly, his own discomfort rising. "I'll try to call his work, see if he'll come home for Thanksgiving. That would be nice."

o o o

The next day, as promised, Carlisle called Jasper's office. His unease gave way to short-lived relief when he finally got to hear his voice.

"Jasper Cullen." A tired, harsh tone, his name spoken so quickly as to sound like one word.

"Jasper, hi." Carlisle hesitated, giving his son time to recognize him. "It's Dad."

At the other end of the line, Jasper drew in a sharp intake of breath.

"Hi. You know, I'm at work."

"I know, but your Mom and I have been trying to call you for a while now and, well, we haven't heard from you in weeks. We just wanted to make sure you're alright."

Jasper paused.

"Yeah, my phone died or something. I've been busy, you know. Would have called this weekend."

Carlisle could barely recognise this detached, almost metallic voice as belonging to his boy.

"But… are you okay, son? We were a bit worried, you know."

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." The distracted, hurried way in which Jasper uttered these words did nothing to assuage Carlisle's increasingly bad feeling. "But look, Dad, I gotta go. I'm really busy, don't have time to talk."

"Wait, wait—are you coming home for Thanksgiving? Your mother would love to have you."

Thanksgiving. Jasper startled, and looked at the date on his computer—yes, it was so close, how had he almost missed it? How had time gone so fast?

Thanksgiving. His mother wanted him home.

It flashed before his eyes- his home, his mother. Warmth and words, the smell of pumpkin pie, his brothers arguing non-stop. His brothers—where were they? He'd lost track. tHey were in college, by now, for sure. How had he forgotten to call them, to wish them good luck? How did he know nothing anymore?

He closed his eyes, ran a hand across his forehead. On the other end his father pressed.

"Jasper? So? Do you think you'll make it?"

"Dad… no. I haven't booked time off and need to cover, you know, seeing as I'm junior and all. And tickets will be expensive by now. So. No. Tell Mom I'll call."

He hung up hurriedly and felt himself flounder deeper still.

o o o

That night, and all the nights that followed, he stayed at work later, and when he got back home he chased sleep with whiskey and whatever else he could find.

Oppressed by exhaustion, anxiety and sadness coiling tightly inside him, till all he could think about, in his exhausted and often intoxicated state, was a never ending loop of questions.

_ Why?  _ What was the meaning of it all—of running, of fighting, of chasing, of repeating the same cycle every day, every week, every month, forever?

_ Where to?  _ What was he doing? Had he made a mistake? Could he stop, change course?

And above all— _ Who _ ? Would he ever share his life, his soul, his body with anyone else? Who, who would want him, who would want to be wanted by him? How, when, would he feel the warmth of arms, of lips, of gentle caresses and furious thrusts again?

At night he dreamed of soft skin, of sudden blushes, of legs that would tremble under his touch; of brown hair and small hands; of clean, pure scents, unmarred by vices or deceits; he chased this dream, trying to see the dream girl's face, but he could never grasp it.

He dreamed of a fresh start, of starting again. He felt like an old man—spent, washed up, unsure of everything, one final step away from giving up.

o o o

He never got to take that final step, though. He came home one night just after Thanksgiving to find his father sitting on the steps outside his apartment.

Shocked, at first, convinced he was hallucinating, he led him inside without being able to utter a word.

Carlisle looked around—the empty bottles, the stench of neglect and loneliness he knew so well from countless home visits, and his son, so much thinner than he remembered, embarrassed and scared, looking simultaneously much older than his age and at the same time like a lost kid.

He sat down on the couch, and gestured to Jasper to follow. Unsure, Jasper sat next to him, and the two men stared right ahead of them, uneasy, still in their coats, tension rising fast, neither daring to break the silence.

With a deep breath, Carlisle collected himself.

"Jasper." He paused, wishing his wife was with him to center him and give him strength. "What's wrong, son?" He turned to look at him, willing him to meet his eyes.

But Jasper did not move, did not answer. Carlisle lifted his arm and tentatively, in a gesture he had almost forgotten, laid it on his son's shoulders.

Stiff, at first, shocked at the physicality, Jasper's first instance was to turn away, to push his father out, but Carlisle held firm and pulled him against his chest, forcing him into a hug that was almost painful.

Gradually, Jasper let himself go, sinking into his father's arms, and the two men stood like this for what felt like an eternity.

Finally, Carlisle spoke again, his voice breaking.

"I don't know what it is. I don't know who, or what did this to you, or maybe nothing happened and this is just the way things are. Either way, it doesn't matter. These things happen. It doesn't matter, you hear? It's okay. Whatever it is, it's okay."

Carlisle didn't know where he was pulling this certainty from, and the effort it took to issue reassurance in the face of an unknown evil, to promise without knowing he could deliver, was brutal. Still, he continued.

"Talk to me. Tell me what is wrong. I'm here for you. We'll get things right, I'll stay for however long it takes."

Against his wishes, against his will, Jasper felt tears escape his eyes, and a sense of liberation overtook him as he spoke softly into his Father's old shirt, the words surprising and delivering him.

"I wanna go home, Dad."

  
  



	10. Chapter 10

o o o

_Love, love, sudden and threatening, quick, confused (Pablo Neruda)_

_o o o_

Jasper woke up with a start, the strangeness of his surroundings shocking him as every other morning so far, his eyes and mind taking a few minutes to adjust to the room: the wooden beams sloping so close over his head; the dense, grey light penetrating through the curtainless window.

The attic room was unfamiliar, sparsely furnished, the bed he was lying on, low and close to the floor – not uncomfortable, exactly, but hard, barely slept in, seemingly brand new.

Slowly, as he emerged from sleep, he recognized this for what it was: the attic at the top of the house, the playroom of his childhood, repository of mismatched furniture and now, apparently, an emergency guest room.

He sat up, taking in the desk under the window – the same desk he'd had since he was twelve, the surface on which he'd practiced Calculus and memorised facts about the Civil War; on which he'd engraved his initials with his Swiss Army knife when he was fifteen.

The old, faded dresser in a corner next to the door was also familiar. He remembered it in his parents' room when he was a kid, the source of many disagreements between Esme and Carlisle on account of its old-fashioned style and impractical drawers.

Above all he recognized the stillness, almost as if the house was surrounded by a thick cloud of cotton-wool, buffering every sound, filtering every disturbance. He knew this absence of noise, this peculiar quality of the air, so quiet and yet so full.

He ran a hand over his eyes, erasing any lingering sense of displacement, and took a deep breath to calm his racing heart.

_ Home. I am home _ .

For now, the thought was sobering, though he didn't doubt the time would come when he would feel restless and bored, and he'd feel just as stifled and limited by his mother's uncomplicated love and his father's unwavering support as he did by the wooden walls and forest all around him. He could already imagine spending nights plotting his escape, much the same way as he'd done all those years ago.

The first few days had been tough, for he was a stranger, really, and there was no vocabulary, no shared set of words or emotions through which he could communicate to his parents what he felt, what he had gone through, what he had lost. The life he had lived, the people he'd worked with, Maria – they were a world apart from his parents' sheltered universe. He was convinced that if his mother knew what he'd done, what had been done to him, she would never be able to look him in the eye again. It made him feel dirty, ashamed, and the flashes of his recent past that came back to him late at night felt like a betrayal of all that Forks and his family stood for.

But with the realization that he didn't need to tell them – that they did not expect it – he had been able to accept the truth. He was hurt, wounded, and this was what he needed – time, and quiet, and sanctuary so he could mend his heart and his soul from the poison he'd been filled with, at his own hands' as well as others'. The scars would never go away, he knew that; but perhaps with time they'd heal and recede back below the surface, part of him but no longer defining.

Leaving his life behind had been surprisingly easy. He'd handed in his notice as if in a trance, his boss's harsh words barely making a dent in the immense relief he felt from walking out of the building, never to set foot in it again. He had canceled the lease on his flat without a hint of regret and sold the few items of furniture he'd purchased to the next tenant. It had felt good to cut the ties, to break out of his unhappy present and the hopeless cycle of loneliness and despair.

He got to his feet, walked to the window, and sure enough, the skies were grey, the clouds pregnant with the promise of rain or snow. The treetops swayed in the wind, and there was nothing else – no houses, no cars, no one-to adulterate the view for miles. He was grateful his old room at the back of the house had gone to Edward after he'd moved out, because the attic really felt like a fresh start. He'd always loved this room and had asked his parents if he move up here many times as a teenager, but Esme had always refused.

" _ If you move to the attic you may as well be living in a different house!" _

Which, of course, had been exactly the point. Apparently what was unacceptable for a sixteen-year-old teenager craving solitude was entirely appropriate for a twenty-five-year-old.

All the things he'd hated as a kid, all the elements he'd been desperate to escape as a teenager were still here. Forks hadn't changed one bit. And yet now he couldn't help but smile at the absurdity of the situation – somebody deliberately trying to build a refuge, a haven of peace and shelter, an escape from the world, could never get it so perfectly right.

He opened the door, and the smell of coffee was the first thing that hit him; the sounds came second. It took him a minute to place them, and when he did he was surprised – for those were distinctly feminine voices, unusual and unexpected in the normally silent house.

There was laughter, a rhythmic stream of murmuring punctuated by flashes of mirth rising up the stairs, and he found himself following the source of the noises. He recognized his mother's voice, but it was her companion's that attracted him, too soft to make out the words, but unmistakeably female.

Step after step he went, down and down, pausing only once he'd reached the landing just outside the kitchen door, slightly self-conscious at his bare feet and crumpled night clothes, but too curious to stop.

He hesitated on the threshold of the bright warm room, relishing his anonymity, watching while still unseen. He shocked himself by recognizing her immediately, but before he consciously registered the whys and hows of her being there, the thought flashed through Jasper's mind, clear and brilliant in its starkness:

_Bella Swan is not a kid anymore._

He could see her profile, just as he had during that car ride the summer before, could see her lips curved up in a smile, her eyes focused on his mother, the coppery lampshade casting a reddish glow on her dark hair. Bella's posture spoke of confidence, of ease, her movements slow and deliberate. Her features were soft and animated, her pale skin suffused with the lightest of blushes as she took her coffee mug and drank from it with a eager, long pull.

He coughed lightly to announce his presence and stepped into the kitchen.

She turned when she heard him come in, and her smile faltered for a second, surprise flooding her brown eyes, a light gasp escaping her lips.

As if embarrassed to be caught, her eyes immediately darted back to Esme, who got up hastily, walking towards the coffee pot on the counter.

"Good morning," his mother said cheerfully as she poured a cup and handed it to him, "I didn't know you were awake."

Jasper walked into the room, hesitating near the table but finally deciding to remain standing, leaning against the counter. He accepted the steaming mug and murmured a word of thanks, but he couldn't stop staring at Bella.

She seemed at once familiar – a figment of pure, shimmering memories from his past, a feature, however marginal, of his life – and brand new, alive and exotic, filling the space around her with the unexpected gift of her presence. He remembered her hanging out with her brothers summer after summer, a constant fixture at their side; swimming at the lake, a lifetime ago, small and fierce and much stronger than she looked; driving her home the previous summer, nervous and tired. But the young woman before him was nothing like the awkward teen he remembered.

He struggled to take her in, to believe she was actually there, and his eyes darted towards his mother, as if she could provide the answers and the questions.

Reading the question in his expression, Esme was quick to jump in.

"Bella's spending Christmas with her Dad, darling. She's come to say hello."

At her name Bella gripped her coffee mug a bit harder and looked up at him.

"Hey, Jasper," she said in a voice that was lower and deeper than he remembered.

"Hi, Bella," he replied, and he found himself smiling at her involuntarily, wishing to put her at ease, to relax her tense stance. "Good to see you."

"And Jasper's here with us for a few weeks, too," Esme was vaguely surprised at the strange undercurrent of embarrassment and recognition that had surged in the room, but she put it down to the fact that Bella and Jasper were almost strangers. "I guess I hadn't yet gotten around to telling you." Then, as if it was an afterthought, she exclaimed, "Wait, you two know each other, right?"

Jasper and Bella laughed awkwardly and answered simultaneously.

"Yeah."

"A bit."

"Oh right, of course you do. I forgot all about that camping trip!" Esme said, sitting down at the table again.

Bella blushed at the mention of that trip, remembering Alice's whispered late-night confessions, her giggles, and then finally her tears. She would die if Jasper guessed just how much she knew about him.

She tucked her hair behind her ear and pulled the sleeves of her dark blue sweater down to cover her wrists, looking at her drink intently; she heard Esme say something else but couldn't focus on the words, consumed as she was by Jasper's presence a mere two feet away, fighting the urge not to look at him yet straining to capture every one of his movements out of the corner of her eye. She still couldn't believe that he was here, in his mother's kitchen, barefoot and looking ruffled and comfortable – nothing like the aloof, unattainable character of her memories.

He leaned against the counter, almost immobile, his long frame resting easily against the old wooden cabinets, bare feet and checkered flannel pants, a thermal shirt that clung close to his strong, lean torso. His presence seemed to fill the entire room and turn it into a place that was suddenly unfamiliar and full of possibilities she couldn't even begin to articulate.

She felt his eyes on her, and it made her heart beat faster, her stomach tighten, her mind jump wildly between the desire to become invisible and the need to move, get up, stand tall so he could look at her more, better, everywhere.

She shivered – whether from cold, or tiredness, or a bizarre elation, she couldn't tell.

Finally, she found the courage to lift her head in his direction, and her eyes met his briefly, finding a pensive, fleeting smile which made her breath catch in her throat. His hair was shorter than she remembered, blond and wavy and messy now from recent sleep, his features chiseled and sharp, almost hard. But it was his eyes that were most arresting of all: deep blue, suffused with a sadness that somehow softened and illuminated his whole face.

Bella realized she'd never seen his eyes before.

_So beautiful._

Immediately, she averted her gaze, the sudden thought scaring her with its ferocious intensity. Next to her she sensed Jasper shifting, the composition of the space changing, and she moved, too, involuntarily, as if responding to him.

"… and it looks like we'll have snow soon." Esme's voice cut through her hypnotized state. "So I guess we better stock up on rock salt."

Jasper lifted himself, stood up straight, and placed his mug in the sink.

"I'll go to the store later, Mom."

His words lingered in the room, an odd sense of finality to them. Bella tried to think quickly of a way to keep him in the kitchen, to get him to speak again, to somehow prolong this fortuitous encounter and turn it into something more, something meaningful, some kind of deliberate connection between them. But she found nothing, and with crushing disappointment she realized he was preparing to leave.

"I better go shower," he said with a nod and headed for the door. Then, almost as an afterthought, he stopped, his hand raised in a small wave.

"Bye, Bella. See you around."

o o o

Jasper went upstairs and went through the motions of his day, a routine that had quickly established itself in the two weeks he'd been home.

The weather was too bad to go running, so he settled for a few push-ups in his room.

He showered.

He dressed.

He took out his Torts textbook, opened it where he'd left it the night before.

But he couldn't stop thinking about Bella. He couldn't deny that their brief encounter had thrilled and intrigued him, and he found himself replaying and analyzing it.

She was an open book, all her emotions rolling like waves in her eyes: her surprise, her nervousness, and finally her attraction to him. It was so obvious, so transparent, and it saddened him, in a way, that he had become so cynical as to be able to identify and assess desire so clinically, so coldly, even when it was directed at him. It had been obvious in her animated eyes, in the way her body had moved in response to his presence, in the energy that had surged in the room the moment their eyes had met. He knew that energy, knew its intoxicating power.

He envied her – how nice it must be to be like Bella, to experience things in such a violent, unguarded way. He was grateful, too, for her presence. It was liberating to see a girl so free of artifice, of pretense, so unaware of the need to hide and dissimulate her emotions.

She was different than he remembered her, older, for sure, but there was something else. She looked thinner, perhaps, and yet somehow softer, her pale face unblemished, big brown eyes that seemed tired and yet vibrant.

She was a world away from the girls and women he'd gotten used to. She wore no makeup; her dark sweater was too big for her and hid her body rather than advertising it.

_ Lovely _ , he thought.

Lovely and pure and young, familiar yet unknown, and he wondered whether he would actually see her around, whether there would be other chances, whether he should work towards creating these chances. The possibility was thrilling and made him feel alive in a way that he had quite forgotten. He wanted to feel that energy again.

He'd seen something in those eyes that he knew only too well, a loss that he recognized immediately. It had made him long to share it, to ease it, to make her forget. It had made him wish that he could forget, too.

He wondered what she was doing in Forks at the beginning of December, why she wasn't in college, what her story was? He remembered, vaguely, that she lived somewhere south and only came to Washington in the summers. Perhaps there would be a way to ask his mother without appearing too curious.

Perhaps he should actively avoid her, on account of her age, of his weariness, of whatever links she had with his family and his brothers.

Settling himself at his desk, he watched the rain start to fall, before it turned to snow.

o o o

After Jasper went upstairs, it took Bella a moment to regain her focus and calm her racing heart, to feel in control of her body's reactions. But the short, unexpected meeting – it couldn't have been more than ten minutes – had left her exhausted and frazzled.

When she finally snapped out of her daze, she looked up to find Esme watching her with a curious, inquisitive stare.

"Sorry, it's just that," she paused, embarrassed and defensive, "I still get tired so easily. I... maybe I should go home now. You must have things you want to get on with, I guess. Spend time with Jasper."

Esme reached for Bella's hand and held it tight.

"Don't worry about it, Bella! You can stay as long as you want, I'm so happy to see you." She smiled and released her hand. "But it's okay if you want to go, I understand. You've only just arrived. I'm so glad you're here for a while. You must come often, okay? I know that Edward and Seth aren't here, but you're always, always welcome here."

Bella nodded, grateful for Esme's generosity and relieved that she hadn't seemed to notice, or at least had chosen not to comment on, the fact that she had been completely flustered by meeting Jasper.

"Thanks. I will."

o o o

Esme watched Bella drive off in the rain, down the same narrow lane where she'd taught her to reverse and make u-turns.

As the car disappeared behind the trees, she reflected on Bella's visit. She loved her, if not as a daughter at least as a niece, definitely family, someone she'd seen grow up and had always felt protective of; but now, as a young woman, she sensed she needed to express her affection in new ways, to instill some confidence and strength into her.

In truth, Esme had been surprised and almost shocked by the changes she'd observed in Bella.

Gone was the fierce, fearless tomboy who'd followed Edward and Seth to the edge of the world and back, the faithful companion to their escapades, the strong-willed constant presence of their late childhood and teenage years. Gone was the plump-faced thirteen-year-old with short hair and braces, her features etched in a perpetual scowl; gone was the scared but brave teenager she had comforted on a summer evening a few years before.

In her place was a young woman, taller and slimmer than she remembered, her hair longer and darker, the circles under her eyes betraying her recent illness, a strange, lingering sadness suffusing her gaze.

The changes in her had been subtle, yet profound, and it was evident that Bella was not yet wholly comfortable in her new skin. This new Bella smiled more, spoke less, moved gracefully but hesitantly. This new Bella was reserved, almost shy, reluctant to say too much about herself. She had been vague about her illness, almost as if she was embarrassed by it.

It had, of course, been impossible to gauge from the twins more than the very basics about how she'd been and what her plans were. Boys were incapable of registering and elaborating this type of information, a fact that Esme had finally come to terms with after so many years. She knew they were in touch with Bella, but the past few months she'd barely been able to talk to her sons herself, and she feared that they'd not spared much time thinking of their friend, what with the whirlwind of moving away, starting college and savoring the first taste of freedom.

Her father had not been much help, either. Naturally reserved, Charlie Swan hated talking about personal stuff, and his daughter's health was no exception. Whenever she bumped into him and asked, or nagged Carlisle to get some news of her, all she got was a polite, distant " _ fine fine, getting better, _ " which only made her more nervous. Esme supposed Charlie had discussed her medical condition with Carlisle, but if he had her husband had not shared anything with her, bound by a strict moral code and a rigid separation between his professional and personal life. He could be immensely frustrating sometimes.

Then, of course, there had been the worries about Jasper, the all-consuming anxiety of finding out what was wrong with him, the emotional and logistical turmoil that his coming home had represented, the effort and elation of reacquainting herself with her son, of making some space for him in their lives, of somehow finding a way to help him without hurting his pride.

And now, Bella – recovering for sure, but not yet healed – suspended in a strange no man's land between adolescence and adulthood.

Esme wondered briefly at the short, strange interaction between Bella and Jasper. They were in a similar place in many ways: both somewhat lost; both taking time to find themselves again. Both in need of a friend.

As she cleared away the breakfast things, she reflected on how vulnerable young people were, so easy to hurt, so unprepared to face suffering and setbacks. Their first defeat could be devastating, and it was usually the strongest, the bravest that suffered the hardest.

o o o

The house was empty once Bella got back. Charlie was at work, and she drifted from room to room, seeking a space where she could settle down, finding each room uncomfortable, inhospitable. The silence bothered her, as did the darkness that had fallen, so early in the morning, due to the rain and the winter season.

She switched on on all the lights and put some music on, then grabbed a book from the pile of reading on her nightstand and lay down on the sofa.

She tried to concentrate on the text, but it didn't take long for her focus to shift from the book and move back to the events of the morning. Any serenity she'd felt on coming to Forks, the relief at feeling better, at seeing her father, at finally moving forward with her life seemed to have evaporated in the space of a few hours. In its place was an unsettled, nervous energy that flowed through her body.

Seeing Jasper had been like an electric shock, and her peace of mind was gone. It had been as if his presence had ignited her, and now all she could see when she closed her eyes was his smile, and all she could hear was his voice saying her name, and all she could think about was when and how and if she was going to see him again.

The intensity of her reaction scared her, for she'd never felt this way about anyone before. She had thought about Jasper fleetingly and almost unconsciously over the years, convinced she'd never actually see him again. Their interactions had been rare and coincidental, and their lives' paths may never have crossed again.

That night at dinner, she prodded Charlie.

"I was at the Cullens today."

"Oh, yeah? Bet Esme was happy to see you. She's always asking about you, you know."

"She was. And I was too." Bella paused, choosing her words carefully. "You know, Jasper was there."

Charlie looked up from his plate.

"Yeah, so I heard from Carlisle." He looked at her with a curious stare.

"I thought he was in California. That he was a lawyer, or something. But it sort of sounds like he's here to stay for a while."

Charlie sighed. Carlisle hadn't given him all the details, but it had been plain as day to see that his eldest son had caused him a significant amount of anguish.

"He had some kind of..." He hesitated, choosing the words carefully. "...crisis, I guess. Burn-out." He gauged Bella's reaction before continuing. "So, yes, he's staying for a while. Studying for the Bar exam, thinking about his options. That's what's Carlisle told me, anyway."

Bella was looking at him intently, drinking up his every word. She didn't comment further, and the conversation between father and daughter soon moved on to another topic.

But later that night in bed, she replayed those words over and over in her head.

_Crisis._

_Burn-out._

_Break-down._

_Options._

So, he was lost, maybe. Just like her. Maybe, just maybe, he would find her. He would see her.

o o o

_What could be more like Mother or a fitter background_

_For her son, the flirtatious male who lounges_

_Against a rock in the sunlight, never doubting_

_That for all his faults he is loved; whose works are but_

_Extensions of his power to charm?_

(W.H. Auden)


	11. Chapter 11

Jasper studied almost nonstop for two days, so when Esme mentioned she was short of milk he jumped at the excuse to get out of the house. The snow that had fallen on Sunday hadn't stuck, but it was getting colder, and the next precipitation was guaranteed to bring ice with it. The rock-salt he promised to get was becoming a priority.

As he drove the few miles to the store, his mind kept running facts and dates in a loop, the steely self-discipline he'd learned over the years making it hard to let go of the concentration he had achieved in the previous forty-eight hours. He'd immersed himself in his studies with even more determination than usual, trying to ignore the now familiar worries, the soul-sapping weariness, but also the unexpected and as yet undefined desires that his brief encounter with Bella had ignited.

Now he used the same willpower to force himself to forget the law, to forget cases and practice tests, if only for a few hours. He knew he needed the mental break. He was ready to let go of the rigid compartmentalization he had so painstakingly achieved. And, if he was honest, he wanted to let himself  _ feel _ , even if it meant confusion, even if it meant vulnerability.

The aisles of the Thriftway were nearly deserted on a Tuesday afternoon, and the few customers seemed to be taking their time, wandering slowly, grabbing items only to put them back when something shinier or cheaper caught their eye, doubtlessly trying to extract as much mindless amusement from their shopping trip as he was. There was nothing much to do in Forks on an icy December day.

Jasper took his time, purposefully exploring the whole store, fascinated with the experience of shopping on a weekday, in this small town all-purpose supermarket that stocked such an eclectic mix of items — you could find pretty much everything here, from nails, to underwear, to milk and books. And yet it seemed barren, austere compared to its Californian equivalent and the mind boggling display of hundreds of varieties of the same item.

Everything was slower here, colors more muted, familiar brands duller and less enticing.

The people were different, too, their clothes and hair unfashionable, their expressions softer and detached; placid, yet sluggish. Even their steps were quieter, a consequence of slow walking and utilitarian footwear.

He pushed his big empty cart around and took it all in, enjoying this sense of detachment and boredom, the quiet, unchallenging predictability of this day. He wondered whether he seemed as alien to others as they to him, whether they saw him at all.

And then he saw her.

He turned into the houseware aisle and there she was, standing in front of a display full of socks, completely absorbed in thought, a basket on her arm.

Once again, he surprised himself by recognizing her immediately, despite her bulky coat and the hair that was covering half her face; it was something in the way she held herself, or perhaps it was simply that he'd been unconsciously waiting and hoping to see her again, so that it seemed absolutely natural and fitting that she should materialize in front of him.

She held a pack of bright blue thermal socks in her hand, and Jasper smiled briefly at her puzzled expression — as if she was unsure, mildly scared of them.

Carefully, hesitantly, Bella moved the pack into the basket, rotating her body towards him as she did. When she lifted her face, she found herself staring right at Jasper, who had advanced so that he was only a few feet away from her.

Surprise colored her features, and her mouth opened slightly, her eyebrows rising in alarm. For a split second, Jasper thought that she might be embarrassed or displeased at seeing him, but her face quickly opened up in a smile, and he relaxed at her spontaneous display of delight.

"Hey, Bella"

"Hi," she answered in that soft, gravelly voice he had noticed the other day. At the time, he'd thought it was a one-off thing, perhaps due to a temporary cold, but he now realized it was just the way she spoke, low and deep, a sound that went straight to his chest. Two letters, one syllable, were enough to make him feel that surge of energy he'd experienced in his mother's kitchen all over again. It was delicious and addictive and he craved more of it.

"I see you're also spending the afternoon in Forks' finest establishment," he continued, and the teasing, gentle tone of this words surprised him — he couldn't remember he last time he'd spoken like this, so easily, so lightly, to anyone who wasn't his mother or father, to anyone he barely knew.

"Uhm, yeah." Bella's eyes didn't leave his, her face lit by a look of pleasure and trust. "I thought I'd go crazy if i didn't get out of the house... but once I got going I realized there aren't really many places to go around here, so..." her words trailed off.

"No, there really aren't. I guess the grocery store is where it all goes down."

Bella smiled and looked away, not wanting Jasper to catch the excitement in her eyes, the anticipation: the longing for something to happen, right now, right there. It was all so new — she didn't think she could hide it, and she didn't know whether it was okay to show it. There must have been rules for this kind of thing, but she had no idea what these rules were, whether she was breaking them, and whether it mattered.

She adjusted her backpack on her shoulders and moved her basket to the other hand, unsure of whether and what she should say next.

They stood in the aisle, neither daring to move, each reluctant to interrupt their fortuitous shared moment.

Jasper leaned into his cart and observed her, her body coiled in anticipation, the way she stood unnaturally still, holding on to her basket as if it was an anchor, her posture and expression betraying her expectation, her desire for their interaction to last longer.

He broke the silence, because he sensed she wouldn't, understood she couldn't.

"Anyway, I'm almost done here. Just looking for that rock salt I promised Esme — our driveway will become a sheet of ice if it freezes tonight." He paused. "Not that we get many visitors anyway."

Bella nodded, unsure whether his mention of visiting was meant to encourage her or discourage her from doing just that.  _ Probably neither _ , she quickly chastised herself.

"Yeah, I think I'm pretty much done too. There's only so much excitement I can cope with in one afternoon." She smiled, hoping her lame attempt at humor would not fall flat, but was rewarded with a gentle laugh from Jasper and the sight of his eyes crinkled in amusement.

He looked younger when he smiled, she noticed.

"Right. Rock salt will be the pinnacle of my day." He held her gaze as he spoke, loving the way she didn't look away, loving her open eyes and the way her lips looked full and perfect as a smile lingered on them. "Help me find it?"

Bella could have screamed in happiness at his request, delirious that he was asking anything at all, that he was giving her a way to stay close to him for a few minutes longer.

Instead, she merely nodded and started walking next to Jasper, trying to somehow shield her basket from him, hoping that he wouldn't examine the contents too closely — the ugly thermal socks were lying right on top of a few assorted snacks of the kind Charlie, and with him any responsible adult, would doubtlessly disapprove of. The items spoke of loneliness and boredom and weakness, and she didn't want Jasper to think of her that way. She wished she'd bought something more grown-up, more substantial — meat, or vegetables, or towels; she could picture the items lying in her basket in a dignified, perfectly plausible arrangement, nothing like the sad looking composition she was laden with.

If Jasper noticed her discomfort, he didn't give it away, and continued strolling ahead with long steps.

They found what they were looking for almost immediately after turning the corner, and he lifted three huge bags into his cart.

"This should do," he huffed as he deposited the last one in.

He made his way to the checkout and Bella hesitated, finally opting to choose a register right next to him – there were no lines anywhere, but she felt silly standing right behind him, hated the thought of being idle and awkward, even for a few short minutes.

She made quick work of paying for and stuffing the items into her grey backpack. When she turned around, Jasper was still not finished, and she paused, wondering whether she should get going or wait for him.

She stood awkwardly, watching, allowing herself the luxury of admiring his long legs in his old, worn jeans, the way his leather jacket hugged his broad shoulders, the wavy blond hair that curled at the nape of his neck. When he reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet, Bella's breath caught, her eyes fixing for a very short moment on his backside. She shocked herself by how much enjoyed looking at it.

She'd heard girls comment on boys' butts before, but had never understood the allure, never understood what exactly they found cute, or attractive, or interesting.

She certainly understood now.

Simply watching Jasper was wonderful, and joy blossomed in her chest, a delicious tingling feeling in her stomach as the pleasure reverberated in her whole body.  _ I wonder what it would feel like to touch him _ , she thought, before she could censor herself. She shuddered, a jolt of something primal and unfathomable causing a quick, sudden spasm in her lower stomach and at the top of her legs.

He put his wallet back in his pocket and turned to her, raised eyebrows in expectation, unknowingly breaking her reverie. "Ready?"

Bella startled, hoping she hadn't been too obvious in her gawking, and walked towards the exit without a word.

As the doors opened, the frigid air hit her and she shivered, pulling the zipper of her coat all the way up. Vanity prevented her from lifting up her hood, though, so the wind beat down cruelly on her, pushing her hair every which way. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Jasper had pulled a black beanie over his head.

They stood side by side in the mostly deserted parking lot for a few long minutes. Eventually, Jasper started pushing his cart towards the parked cars, but he stopped after only a few steps.

"Listen," he said as he turned towards her. His words were hesitant but his voice was strong. "Are you in a hurry to get back home? Wanna grab a cup of coffee?"

o o o

The diner was only a few blocks away so they decided to walk, leaving their cars in the store parking lot. The wind was icy and merciless, making the day feel much colder than the thermometer suggested. The sky was already darkening.

Everything around them was grey — the road, the low clouds, the cars that drove past them as they sped down the road. No one else was around as the walked, hands in pockets, heads bent because of the wind, and it occurred to Jasper than no one in Forks ever walked anywhere — that the very fact they had decided to do so marked them out as bizarre, out-of-towners.

It was not a pretty walk. The trees were dark and ominous, the few buildings they encountered — motels, and furniture shops, and a few houses — seemed deserted. The air was heavy with the imminent snow, the scent and feel of it already lingering over the town.

They walked for almost ten minutes, in silence, each wondering whether it had been a terrible idea.

Bella worried that she'd have nothing to say to Jasper, that he'd find her young, and shallow, and immature. She wondered how on earth she could hold his attention – worldly and sophisticated and experienced as she knew him to be.

Jasper, for his part, felt like he was overstepping an unspoken boundary, one that had marked Bella as firmly belonging in his brothers and his parents' world, hitherto firmly shielded and protected by their presence and prior claims. Alone with him, she was someone else, unknown, alluring, vulnerable.

o o o

Bella's face was red, her teeth chattering as she sat down in the booth.

"Cold?" he enquired, somewhat redundantly, feeling bad for having made her walk, guilty for the way she was shivering and blowing into her hands to warm them up.

She peaked out from under her hair, nodding as she tried to get her teeth under control.

Her tone was apologetic. "I'm always cold these days. I guess I'm just not prepared for this weather."

"Hence the socks?" Jasper's teasing, gentle voice was back, and she stilled, her eyes growing wide in surprise and mortification. He had noticed, after all. She buried her face back in her hands, and took a moment to re-emerge.

"I was hoping you hadn't spotted them."

"Why?" he asked, genuinely puzzled, yet secretly delighted at her embarrassment.

"Oh god. They're the ugliest socks ever. They're like... granddad socks."

He laughed out loud, making her relax with his easy stance and obvious, unexpectedly light-hearted mood.

"They're what you need in Washington. In case you haven't noticed, no one cares much for fashion round these parts." He gestured around the old, ugly diner, with its faded booths and faint smell of burnt coffee, to the handful of patrons sitting around, none of whom looked like they'd spent more than one minute wondering about what they were going to wear.

She looked around, furtively, but it didn't make her feel any better that he was comparing her to the middle-aged patrons with the bad haircuts and the pastel-colored fleeces.

She felt slightly dejected as she turned back to face Jasper, because the last thing she wanted was for him to think about her in this way, with thick electric blue socks and shapeless clothes, shivering from the cold, her hair wild and her nose surely red now.

But when she looked back at him she found him smiling, charming and knowing, and she relaxed again, finally lowering her hands onto the table.

"Next things you're gonna need are a serious pair of gloves and hunting hat with furry ears," he continued, enjoying the way she was thawing, in every sense, relishing her loosening posture and her retreating reserve.

Bella couldn't help but laugh, as she realized that his teasing was not meant to embarrass her but rather to include her in some kind of private joke she couldn't quite fully comprehend yet.

"I've always wanted to have a hat with furry ears," she said, "I guess now is my chance.'

The waitress handed them menus and poured coffees without so much as a word. Bella grabbed the hot mug immediately, grateful for the warmth, momentarily lost in the relief and distraction it brought.

The ice was broken, and he could finally look at her head on, directly, fully. He'd observed her in his kitchen a few days before but now he could take his time, let his gaze linger on her features, memorize her big brown eyes, thick eyebrows, the way her skin was so pale and fine, almost translucent. Her hair looked messy and unstyled, soft waves that framed her face and curled up around her wide shoulders. She had a long, graceful neck, barely visible in the thick purple sweater she was wearing.

There was an elegance to her movements, a fluidity that he didn't think he had ever seen before in any of the girls and women he'd met: for while her words and face betrayed her shyness, her body seemed possessed of a powerful confidence of which she was entirely unaware.

He remembered, from that camping trip and their brief moment swimming together, that she's been strong and fast, lithe and dynamic; and that strength, that power lingered on, somehow, intermingled with a languid, limpid calm.

She was pretty, for sure, tall and slender, but it wasn't her looks that drew him to her, for he didn't want simply to admire her: he wanted to make her smile and blush and laugh and furrow her brow. He wanted to make her come alive.

He took a sip of his coffee, noted it was mediocre and bitter, and spoke again, wishing to dispel any lingering traces of awkwardness, and to change the subject in his mind, away from visions of Bella in bathing suit.

"You're from somewhere South, right? New Mexico?"

Bella shook her head.

"Arizona," and the way she said it, with that throaty quality he was becoming so fond of, the way her tongue seemed to hug the consonants, sent his mind spinning.

"Right," he continued, "it must be a huge change, from the desert to the rainiest place in the USA. It must be strange for you." He paused, taking another sip of his coffee. "Forks, I mean."

She paused, stirring her coffee.

"Well, I know Forks. I used to come here all the time in summer, you know, and I always loved it." She looked away, her chin on her hand, remembering how much she'd looked forward to her summers of freedom as a kid and teenager. "All the green, and the moisture in the air, and the scents... everything's so alive here, compared to Phoenix."

She had no way of telling whether her memories of Forks were in any way relatable to Jasper. What was Forks to him? How had he experienced it? She had no idea. He'd been here, of course, but always at the edges, part of the scenery, somehow, of what made Forks vibrant and alive. He'd been a mystery to her, his presence casting a shadow of apprehension, his absence unspoken of, and yet always felt.

"But winter... it's a different story. I'm not sure I like the cold much, and the days are so short... It's nothing like I remembered it."

Jasper realized that all his memories of her took place outdoors, and he remembered she was active and full of energy, roaming the woods with his brothers all summer long, camping with them at that music festival a couple of years ago.

The last time he'd seen her she'd been wearing shorts and flip-flops, sunkissed freckles adorning her cheeks, exhausted and elated from three days in the mud and music.

But here she was now, alone and unaccustomed to the rain and sleet, visibly uncomfortable in her winter clothes, shivering from the cold. The contrast couldn't have been greater. He wondered whether she felt as miserable right now as his memories of his winters in Forks were.

"I used to hate winters here, growing up. Couldn't wait to move away, go somewhere warm, with blue skies and short nights. No rain."

He chuckled, the irony of the fact that he'd spent the last five years in California indoors, either at the library or in an office, not lost on him.

Bella looked at him quizzically, but didn't probe, and seemed content to let silence linger between them awhile longer.

"I hope you don't mind me asking but... what are you doing here? I mean, why aren't you in Arizona, or in college?"

Bella hesitated, her eyes falling to the table. Her hands stilled. Jasper held his breath, wondering whether he'd gone too deep, too soon.

"Your Mom didn't tell you?" she asked him, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I didn't ask."

Bella spoke again, still without looking at him.

"I was gonna go to University of Arizona. I had a swimming scholarship. I was all set." She paused, the next words stuck in her throat, hard to let go of, but even harder to swallow back. "I got sick. Last summer. A bad bout of mono, except it took months to shake it."

She took a long sip of her coffee, and then finally looked back at him for a brief moment.

"I've basically been asleep for six months."

Jasper briefly considered making a joke about Sleeping Beauty, but it seemed inappropriate in light of the monotone voice in which she'd told him what he guessed must have been hard for her to share.

"So no more swimming for me, no more scholarship. And I kind of missed the beginning of term... I was too weak to go anywhere." She lifted her eyes to his, her smile a bit more pained now. "So here I am."

He waited for a moment before speaking again.

"But you're okay now?" somehow this mattered enormously, that she should be okay, that she should be fine, that whatever it was that had broken inside her was fixed now, or at least on its way to being fixed.

"I am. The virus is gone, if that's what you're asking."

"I meant if you feel better." Jasper wished, above anything, that she would look at him now, that he could see what she felt and thought. " If you feel like yourself again."

Bella's eyebrows furrowed, as if she was pondering the question. In truth, she had never thought about this before, and it was hard to answer in a way that was true yet didn't give too much away.

"Myself? I don't know. I do feel much better, but nothing like I did before I got sick. My whole life has changed so much," she said wistfully. "I've changed so much."

"You have." Jasper's voice startled her, her eyes widened, confused. She looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and diffidence.

"What do you mean? How do you know?"

"I remember you, from two summers ago. The concert, you know? I was your chauffeur, if you remember." He paused, enjoying the way she processed his words, witnessing the memories bloom behind her eyes. "And before, too."

His words made no sense to her. "You remember me?" she asked, incredulous.

Jasper put his hands up, smiling in return.

"Of course I remember you." He leaned back, resting his arm on the back of the chair next to him. "You were always around. You were like, my brothers' shadow."

Bella had done a good job at hiding whatever awkwardness she'd been feeling up to now, but right then she couldn't help but blush, embarrassed and secretly elated.

He remembered her.

"Or maybe they were yours," Jasper continued, "I could never figure that one out."

They were silent for a long time after that. Outside, darkness was falling, and the headlights of the few cars reflected in the diner's window, rhythmic and hypnotizing.

They stole glances of each other, each enjoying this quiet, reserved, unexpected dance of mutual discovery.

There was a peace in their interaction: the energy was still there, humming and vibrant, but it had acquired a natural and easy quality, a sweetness that lingered and bound. It made Jasper's mind still and Bella's heart flutter; it made them both hyperaware of themselves, and of each other. It made strange, complete, irrational sense.

It was Bella who spoke again after a long pause, her words clear and determined.

"But I'm going. To college, I mean." She sat up taller as she said it. She was volunteering too much, perhaps, but she didn't care. She didn't want Jasper to think she was a loser, some kind of victim. "After Christmas. To Northern California."

Jasper nodded, unsure of what to say. He remembered being excited about college, planning, looking forward to the future. He envied Bella even as he pitied her for all the disappointment she was bound to encounter. The he remembered that she'd already experienced so much of it.

"I'm sorry about your scholarship," he said, looking at her intently, and he realized he really was, inexplicably and undeniably sorry for her. Bella, lovely Bella, so strong and fragile, so mesmerizing and so unaware, Bella shouldn't have had to suffer, she shouldn't have had to give up anything she wanted.

But her smile, pure and true, luminous and unguarded, put his mind at rest.

"Don't be. Maybe it's better this way."

And in that moment she really believed that it might, in fact, be better this way, that perhaps there was a reason for it all. Relaxed, light, she allowed herself to look at Jasper, his blue eyes so deep and dark, his beautiful, beautiful face so close that she could almost touch it.

The words formed in her mind, danced on her lips, and before she could stop them or reflect, before self-consciousness could overtake her, a new, unexpected daring pushed them out.

"And what about you?"

The change in his demeanor was sudden and stark. His hands clasped the menu, his jaw hardened, and he visibly fought to keep his eyes focused on her. They were clouded, harder, and she hated the way she felt—small and young and inexperienced—all the things she did not want to feel in his presence.

"What about me?" His voice was an octave lower than it had been till then, and while the words echoed her question, his tone made it clear he did not really want to answer it.

He was not ready to tell her about himself. He was not ready to share his recent past, to expose what he'd done, how he'd broken down, to reveal how he'd given up his dignity in pursuit of sexual obsession and his integrity to grasp an ephemeral professional success. He couldn't tell her how his father had saved him from diving headfirst into a pit of defeat and disgust, how he'd had to ask for help, how he'd fled and come back home hurt, small, scarred.

Perhaps he never would be ready, for how did one share such thing with someone so young and trusting, what words did one use to describe, honestly, without scaring and shocking?

He observed her flounder slightly, fidgeting with her coffee spoon, the silence laden with expectations, and in those brief moments he saw her decide, win over her shyness, raise her eyes to his once more, wide open, brown and trusting and devoid of any traces of deceit or malice.

He'd scared her maybe, but he hadn't scared her away.

And now he wanted her words, all of them, he wanted to know whatever it was about him that she cared about. He might not be ready to answer, but he wanted all her questions.

"YouÖ you were supposed to be in California. In school, or working. Seth told me."

Jasper nodded slightly

"But you're here now." It was a question, but it was also an affirmation, and it was a request.

"Yeah." He smiled at her, and relished the smile he got back in return. "I'm here."

"Perhaps one of these days I'll tell you all about it."

  
  



	12. Chapter 12

_And it spread, into my heart_

o o o

Bella closed her eyes and leaned her head against the edge of the bathtub. Slowly, she bent one knee, then the other; a gentle movement, just enough to create shallow waves and enjoy the feeling of the moving water rippling up her back and between her toes.

She had discovered the joy of long, lazy hot baths since arriving in Forks, and it had been a revelation. After a lifetime of rushed showers in crowded changing rooms, after years of her mother's conscientious reminders that they lived in a desert and water was a scarce, precious resource to be used wisely and efficiently, Bella could have never guessed that personal hygiene could be so pleasurable. Both water and spare time were plentiful in Washington, and the large bathroom at the top of the stairs largely unused, since Charlie preferred to use the shower room in the basement.

And so Bella claimed the room for herself, filling it with steam and scents and dreamy secrets, soaking away her tiredness and her sense of displacement in a daily late afternoon ritual, relishing the exhilarating experience of water being simply a source of pleasure, a balm and a cocoon, rather than a barrier to be battled and conquered.

Rivulets ran down her neck and her chest, suds clung to her hair. A delicious exhaustion, devoid of ache or pain, spread through her limbs. She felt light, immaterial, one with the water.

An unconscious smile played on her lips, a feathery light shiver rippled through her body.

All she could think about was Jasper.

His blue eyes, deep and clear, then suddenly hard and scared; his lips, full and pale, slightly chapped, with a tiny scar just on the right corner; his stubble-covered jaw, the curve of his nose; his broad shoulders, strong and wide; his posture, so purposeful and powerful.

Above all, his voice, his teasing, warm tone, the way he made her feel simultaneously on the edge of an electric fence and entirely centered.

She immersed her head and held her breath, blowing gentle bubbles to prolong her time below the surface. Never in a million years could she have imagined that she would get to spend an hour alone with Jasper Cullen; that he would know her, remember her, even; that he would ask questions about her, that he would listen to her answers, that he would care.

He had looked at her in a way no one had ever looked at her before. Even now, hours later, thinking about his gaze and the way he'd said her name – drawing out the last syllable in a weird, maddening way – was enough to make her breath catch in her throat and a tightening spasm reverberate in her abdomen.

She remember Jasper looking at Leah that way, all those years ago; and at Alice, during the early days of their camping trip, so she knew, intimately and intuitively, what that look meant. It was scary and intoxicating and suddenly all that mattered.

It seemed almost impossible that this could be the same boy, the same man.

It seemed too good to be true, too surreal to consider, that this should have actually happened; she kept replaying their exchange in her head to extract yet more pleasure from it.

They had walked back to their cars after their coffees, side by side in the frosty evening, darkness all around them. She'd stolen glances at him as they walked, and caught him doing the same; rejoicing every time her shoulder accidentally brushed his arm, wishing the road would last forever.

She stood awkwardly to the side of her car, hands in pockets, desperately wishing she could find the words to part without really saying goodbye, incapable of offering a bridge to a future repeat of their encounter.

She could swear her heart had stopped for two or three seconds when he finally spoke, smiling, furrowing his brows as his words faltered slightly:

"So… I'll see you around, yeah?"

She nodded quickly, holding his gaze.

"Perhaps I could give you a call one of these days. You know… in case you get bored again, or need to pick up socks."

There had been no trace of self-consciousness in her laughter, no deceit as she had let the joy she felt bubble up and surface. Just imagining Jasper giving her a call was enough to send her soaring and spinning. He had smiled in response and moved imperceptibly closer, leaning in, bending his knees slightly so that he could look into her eyes.

"Sure. I'd like that." Her heart had beaten so fast she thought he might hear it. She stayed still, rooted on the spot, her eyes locked on his and unable to move, so that she had startled when, after a moment, he had spoken again.

"So, can I have your number then?"

o o o

It had been full dark by the time Jasper got home. Esme was sitting at the kitchen table, absorbed in her laptop.

She looked up and closed it quickly when he walked into the kitchen. Had Jasper been paying attention, he would have noticed her blush, and would have questioned her reading; but he just walked on, raising a hand in salute.

"Hey darling. How was the grocery store?"

Jasper shrugged, placing the milk over the counter.

"You were gone a long time."

There was a question in her voice, and every one of Jasper's instincts, every single one of his habits, told him to lie, to evade, to deny. But he was tired of hiding, tired of feeling like his life should be a secret from those who loved him, tired of the unintentional shame that accompanied all his actions. There were things in his past he knew he would never be able to talk to his mother about: he could not, would not ever tell her about Maria, about how fast and far he'd fallen, about the surrender of his dignity and morals in pursuit of sexual obsession.

But to keep Bella a secret, to compartmentalize her, would be to put her on a par with the darkness he kept hidden.  _ This _ —whatever it was—  _ this _ should be out, into the light.

"I bumped into Bella Swan."

Esme raised her eyebrows, surprised.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. I saw her at the store, and we hung out for a while. Grabbed a coffee down at the diner. "

Esme marveled at the way her son seemed almost bashful, and wondered briefly whether she should be reading between the lines of his succinct account of the afternoon's event. But he was talking to her, and he had apparently been talking to someone else—to Bella, of all people- and he was sharing something with her, however small; she recognized it for what it was, a gift, an olive branch, and she took it.

"I guess she must be lonely. She doesn't really know anyone in Forks." She paused for a moment. " Was it nice? Is she okay?"

"Yeah, it was," he answered after a long pause, "why wouldn't she be?"

It was Esme's turn to feel self-conscious. She had no idea what Bella and Jasper had talked about, how much he'd told him of her recent illness. She didn't want to feel as though she was betraying her secrets.

"Oh, nothing. Just I haven't heard from her for a couple of days, and with Charlie gone all day... I'm afraid she gets a bit lonely. I'll ask her for lunch one of these days."

o o o

It took Jasper three days to call Bella.

She was never far from this thoughts, her big vibrant eyes and the way her lips seemed never to stand still; her skin, so pale and so fine, and a lingering tiredness that made her look older than her years.

She was beautiful in a way that he couldn't quite comprehend, wild and untested, attractive in the most instinctive of ways.

She was a constant ache in the pit of his stomach, an undercurrent of want behind every conscious thought.

At first, he burned with the need to see her again. He kicked himself for all the things he hadn't said and all the things he hadn't asked. He stayed awake that night thinking of what it would be like to touch her, to kiss her, to have her; to dive into a long-forgotten world of innocent kisses and untainted desire. He would wrap himself into her warm, pure, primal lust, he would explain it to her and make her own it.

It had been a long time since he'd interacted with a girl who didn't know to play games; it had been a long time since he'd allowed himself to want a girl so unequivocally.

As he lay in bed, he pictured what it would be like to make love to Bella: soft cotton underwear, warm and wet to his touch; strong arms and legs holding him tight; her body open and generous, her hands caressing, her mouth trailing kisses and whispering strangled nonsense.

A world away from his last time with Maria- from her expensive lingerie, so sloppily discarded; from the smell of expensive perfume and sweet liquor; from her manicured nails digging and hurting, from her teeth biting, from her obscene words. He would never forget it, much as he wanted to- the way she'd slapped him hard, blaming him because she couldn't climax, how she'd worked herself into a frenzy and finally collapsed, crying and cursing, all of her beauty obliterated by the despair and anger seeping out of her.

That was the picture of her he would carry forever.

The next morning he took an extra long shower, jerking off hard and almost painfully; grateful for the relief but hating that it was purely hormonal, purely chemical, and it would be short-lived and, ultimately, ineffectual.

His mind somehow clearer, his judgement unclouded, he was able to think of Bella in a more objective way.

She was like a mirror, and the more he looked into it, the more he thought he saw the truth.

She was young, clean, inexperienced; he felt weary, sullied, and used.

She was like an open book, and he had made concealing his emotions into an art.

She was unmarked, a story yet to begin; and he had barely only just closed a painful, sordid chapter of his life.

As the hours and days wore on his desire to hear and see her became marred with complex rationalizations. He convinced himself that they'd have nothing to say to each other, that it would be awkward, that perhaps she hadn't been that lovely after all, that he had made it all up.

That he shouldn't be wasting his time running after an eighteen-year-old girl, not even a college freshman yet. They'd have nothing in common and he- he'd known real women, he'd  _ had _ real women. Women who'd seen the world and knew what they wanted. Women who knew how to take it.

And it was too soon, anyway, too soon after Maria. He was not ready- r _ eady for what? _ he chastized himself-  _ ready for nothing. It's nothing. There's nothing there. _

And he had no time; he had to concentrate on the bar exam, to at least get that out of the way. He had wasted so much time already.

He forced himself to go back to his familiar coping strategy: an iron-clad routine, a detailed to-do list, focus and self-discipline. He studied; he took mock-tests; he bookmarked job openings. Twice a day, he sat down at the dining table with his parents. He went running whenever it wasn't raining.

o o o

On the Friday morning he heard Bella's voice downstairs, and it was all it took for him to realize that he had been fooling himself.

He wanted her.

He wanted to see her, to hear her, to find out what she smelled like.

He briefly debated going downstairs, saying hi, making small talk in front of his mother.

But he was fed up of awkward, coincidental meetings—he wanted the next time he saw Bella to be fully intentional, to be on his terms.

He stayed in his room and tried hard to ignore her presence in the house, the stairs creaking with steps, real or imagined, the occasional sound of laughter.

He finally gathered his resolve and opened the door, determined to catch her, to apologize if needed. He started down the stairs just as he heard the front door slam shut, and watched her car pull away from the small window on the first floor landing.

o o o

Bella had almost given up on Jasper calling her. After the first feverish hours, when she had expected a call to come any minute, a text to light up her phone before the day was over, she had forced herself to be patient, to give it time, wondering once again whether perhaps it was all part of the rules, of those unknown ways in which adults of the opposite sex interacted. But after a day of waiting, patience had given rise to uncertainty, and then, after two days, resignation. She had tried and failed to read, surfed the Internet, exchanged a few inconsequential emails with Seth. He'd asked her what she'd been doing in Forks, and whether she missed him; and she'd said  _ not much _ , and  _ yeah, when are you coming? _ She'd felt guilty for keeping her interactions with Jasper a secret, and then silly and pathetic for making it into a  _ thing _ , when clearly there had been nothing.

She hesitated when Esme called her to see how she was doing and invite her over for an early lunch. What if he was there? And what if he wasn't?

What she thought was her last hope had been crushed when she'd stepped out of the Cullens' house without having seeing a trace of him.

Perhaps it had, after all, been a fluke, an aberration. She drove home feeling dejected and adrift.

o o o

The disappointment at having just missed her was raw and surprisingly bitter. What he thought had been self-control and rational, honorable behavior suddenly struck him as pointless and ridiculous.

Jasper stood up by the window, grabbing his phone. He looked out over the trees and the heavy clouds and finally made the call. He leaned his head against the glass and listened to the dial tone, his stomach tense with anticipation.

o o o

The sound of her phone ringing pulled Bella from deep sleep. She was confused as she opened her eyes, her neck aching with the uncomfortable position it had been forced into. She'd fallen asleep right on the sofa, sitting up, the TV still on.

It took her a moment to place the sound and another to spring into action. Finally, she got up and ran for the kitchen, answering right after what she was sure would be the last ring.

o o o

"Hello?" Bella's voice was rough and breathless.

"Bella?" Jasper said, feeling stupid for his obvious retort, unable to contain his surprise at the way she sounded.

"Yeah," she replied, low and raspy, as though she'd not been talking for a while.

"Hi. It's Jasper." He paused, giving her time to respond, but he was met with silence on the other side, so he continued. "Am I disturbing you?"

He tried to keep his tone gentle, non-committal, on the off chance he had caught her at a bad time or that she might not want to speak to him at all.

"Oh. Hi."

He smiled, hearing the surprise in her voice, imagining the way her face must look right now, wondering if she was blushing, if she was smiling.

"Sorry, I'm just…" She seemed frazzled now, lost for words. "No, you're disturbing me. Not at all." She paused for a second. "What time is it?"

Jasper let out a small laugh. So that's why she sounded so confused.

"It's a quarter past two." Then, for good measure, he added "in the afternoon. Bella, were you asleep? Did I wake you?"

"NO! I mean… yeah, I think I was asleep. But… it's okay." Her words were jumbled up, frantic. "Gosh, sorry. I'm so embarrassed."

Jasper wished he were there to see her red-cheeked and wild-haired.

"No need for that. A nap sounds nice," he said, in the gentlest of voices. "Was it nice?"

Bella laughed.

"I guess. I'm still not sure if I'm awake yet."

Jasper walked back to his desk and sat on his chair, the telephone wedged between his ear and his shoulder, his fingers ghosting over his laptop's keyboard. He closed his eyes and leaned back.

"So, what are you up to today?" He tried to keep his tone light, casual, but what came out was more intense and direct than he would have wished. If Bella was surprised at his question, she didn't let on.

"Not much—no plans. Maybe some reading, you know, to prepare for school." Then, as if an afterthought, she added, "I was at your house this morning, you know."

"I know," he admitted in a low voice, "I was studying. I just… I was in the middle of something." He didn't elaborate further, worried that she felt slighted, or that she'd want to question just what he'd been in the middle of. But Bella said nothing, and in her silence Jasper found the confirmation that he should go on.

"I was going to take a break, actually. I've had enough of these books, and of my room, and of this house. I thought I'd go for a drive somewhere, you know, while it's still light out."

Bella was silent on the other side of the line. It was hard for Jasper to read her, to figure out what she was thinking. He felt nervous, suddenly afraid of rejection.

"If you've got not other plans I was wondering… whether maybe you wanted to come along?"

"For a drive?"

"Yeah. Out towards La Push, I was thinking. Have you ever been out there?"

"Once, ages ago. With your Dad, I think."

"I'd have said a walk, but it's freezing today. Anyway, I need to get out of here. And I thought, you know… if you've got nothing better to do…"

"I'd love to go for a drive."

The smile in her voice lifted his lips and his heart.

o o o

Her street looked familiar, and Jasper was sure he'd driven down this tidy, pleasant cul-de-sac of well-kept bungalows before. Perhaps one of his school friends had lived here, perhaps his piano teacher. He wondered briefly whether it had been a girl, Leah maybe though that was weird, because he remembered quite clearly that she lived further out, towards the Reservation.

Charlie Swan's house was the last one, tucked away behind a large tree. The front door opened before he could even switch off the engine. Bella emerged, rushing down the steps, the door banging loudly behind her.

She smiled in his direction, even though Jasper wasn't sure she could actually see him behind the tinted car window. Her coat was unzipped, revealing a grey sweater underneath and an ugly brown man's scarf wrapped around her neck- probably her father's; her hair was messily pulled back, and even from a distance he could see that she wasn't wearing any makeup.

But her face was animated, her brown eyes beaming, her body moving gracefully and confidently in the barren yard, and Jasper marvelled how it could be that every time he saw her she looked lovelier to him.

In a few seconds she was by his car, and he leaned across the passenger side to open the door for her, somehow disappointed that she'd moved too fast for him to be able to get out and open it properly for her.

A rush of cold air invaded the car as she slipped in, and then her scent—clean and unexpected, new yet unmistakeable.

"Hey," she said breathlessly as she turned to him, her face lighting up with the words, her eyes deep and alive.

"Hey yourself," and he felt lighter, freer than he had in months, years maybe, mere inches away from a smiling, glowing Bella Swan, still reeling from the simple yet somehow daring act of having called her, of having her in his car. No words came to him and yet that, too, was okay- freedom and a source of pure, uncomplicated joy.

Their eyes lingered on one another for a long moment, until Bella looked away, down to her hands, suddenly shy. Jasper took it as his cue to put the car in gear and pull away. He stole one last glance at her, relishing the way her profile was already so familiar.

o o o

Bella was reminded of a similar trip, of sitting next to Jasper on the long ride home two summers ago. It was the same car. They were sitting in the same positions. Their distance was the same.

And yet everything was different.

They had been strangers at the time, threaded together in the lightest of way through the rest of the Cullens. But now there was an unspoken connection between them that no one else knew about. She had been scared and uneasy next to him, on edge the whole time, painfully aware of the nervous tension emanating from his presence, but she found herself relaxing now, enjoying his company, his smell, the way his body moved. Where the erratic beating of her heart had surprised and terrified her at the time, now it was the welcome, exhilarating soundtrack to delicious way he made her feel.

He had been tan, and beautiful, and angry: unreachable, intimidating. Now his skin was the same pale shade as hers, and his eyes were framed by dark, heavy shadows, and his shoulders and jaw spoke of tiredness, of sadness, of regret.

She had feared his body and his touch, but now she wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch  _ him _ , to feel the silk in his golden hair and the roughness of his dark stubble.

She clasped her hands together tightly, as if, in an unguarded moment, they could betray her and act without her knowing.

She leaned back and watched the scenery speed past her eyes—the retreating outskirts of Forks, the dark, looming forest, so thick and heavy at this time of year. The road wound tightly through the trees, the humming of the car hypnotic and seductive.

o o o

Jasper knew this road like the back of his hand.

"It's like being seventeen again," he said, then laughed because he had never meant to share this thought out loud.

"Yeah?" Bella turned her head to look at him.

"Yeah. I used to drive out here all the time. To escape, you know?" He took a chance to turn towards her, to steal a glance at her trusting, beautiful eyes.

"What did you escape from?"

Jasper thought he would never get used to the low, raspy tone of her voice. He would never not feel a tightening in his gut when he heard her speak.

"I don't know. Stuff. People. My family, I guess. My little brothers. My mom, mostly."

What had he been escaping? He honestly could not remember now. All that had mattered at the time was giving in to the feeling of flight, to the elation of breaking away.

"You wanted to be alone?" There was surprise in her voice and a distant, nascent understanding.

"I guess. I don't know why, now. I felt different from them. Or maybe I felt the same, and I wanted to be different." He paused, and shook his head. "What a load of bullshit, right?" He tried to dismiss the topic, to make light of his adolescent behaviours, but the laughter got stuck in his throat.

He  _ had _ wanted to be alone. And how well he had succeeded. It was suddenly so clear and so crushing, and he had no one but himself to blame. He'd pushed everyone away, pushed himself as far and as fast as he could, and what for? Why? He had no clue, and he realized now that he never had.

Bella's words pulled him back to the moment.

"It's not bullshit. We always want what we don't have, right? I mean… I would have given anything to have a family like yours, you know? To  _ not _ be alone. I guess that's why I was your brothers' shadow, 'cause that meant I could be around your house all the time."

Jasper kept driving, not daring to look at her now, afraid that he might see sadness there, hurt perhaps, at hearing her repeat the words he'd so carelessly thrown at her a few days earlier.

"But I get it, I do. I mean, Edward's just the same in this respect. He always wanted to go off, do his own thing. He took it all for granted. But I guess you can only wish for aloneness if you know you're never truly gonna be lonely, you know?"

Just then the road curved, and suddenly the ocean appeared before them.

Bella gasped at the grey mass of water, at the imposing waves crashing against the rocks, and all thoughts of loneliness escaped her.

"Wow! This is amazing!"

Jasper chuckled at her excitement, delighted that the conversation had shifted away from awkward introspection.

He drove on, looking for a spot he remembered from long ago, nested away behind the rocks, just off the main road. He hoped it was unchanged, still accessible and still secluded, and was relieved when he found it just so, no chains or fencing to keep outsiders out and no other cars in sight.

He left the engine running to keep the car warm and finally allowed himself to relax into his seat and really look at Bella. He cheeks were flushed, and she seemed awed by her surrounding, hypnotised by the power of the ocean below them.

"You like it?" he asked, and it suddenly became the most important thing in the world that she should, and that she should tell him so.

She turned him towards him, her eyes full of so much emotion he thought he should look away.

"I love it. Thank you for bringing me here."

"Thank you for coming." He had no idea how he stopped himself from reaching out and touch her skin, feel the warmth of her face. "And sorry. About this morning, I mean. I should have come down to say hello."

"Why didn't you? I thought…" She let her words trail, but Jasper couldn't tolerate the idea of doubt, of things left unsaid.

"What did you think, Bella?" he whispered, fearing her answer.

"I thought… perhaps you didn't wanna see me. That that's why you hadn't called."

"But I did call you, eventually, didn't I?"

_Look at me, Bella. Look at me. Read the things I cannot say to you yet. Understand me._

She looked at him. The intensity in his eyes startled her, the way his lips trembled imperceptibly. There was something there she could not understand.

"What's California like?" she blurted out, surprising herself with the suddenness of her diversion.

Jasper sighed and looked away. His eyes focused on the clouds on the horizon and the rapidly dipping sun—These were the shortest days of the year, the hardest, so far up North.

It wouldn't be long now before sunset, and the cinder sky was already streaked with red and blue, an explosion of colors before the darkness of the night.

He wished he had more time.

"It's… big, I guess. Laid back, mostly. Good weather, good wine. Land of opportunities."

The bitterness in his tone made Bella bristle. She heard his words and understood the exact opposite.

"You don't miss it?" she asked, speaking as softly and gently as she could.

"Well, I'm going back, if that's what you're asking. Bar exam in late January. Then I guess… depending on that… we'll see."

He remembered she was moving there, too, soon, and that perhaps that was the reason behind her question: a concern for her future well being, rather than an enquiry into his past.

Perhaps he did have time, after all. He chased the thought away as quickly as he had grasped it.

"You're moving there, right?"

Bella nodded. "Not by choice, really. There aren't many colleges that would accept me for a January start."

Jasper was quiet for a moment.

"You'll like it, though. Most people do. And, come on, you're going to college. You're gonna love it. Freedom, at last, right?"

The pained look that Bella gave him made him think that she had no desire for freedom, that the unknown terrified her.

Desperate to make her feel better, he went on.

"Pretty much every school out there is big on swimming. You'll be able to pick that up again."

There was encouragement and concern in his words, shocking to him as much as it was to her. But Bella shook her head.

"I haven't been back in the water since May. I don't even know if I can still swim."

"Isn't it like… riding a bike? I mean, I don't think it's something you can forget, right?"

"But I don't know if I'll still be any good at it. I don't know if I'll still like it."

She didn't need to spell out the rest, for Jasper understood perfectly what she really meant:  _ and what if I am not, and what if I don't—who am I, then? _

It felt like an intimate confession, monumental considering how short their acquaintance had been, yet there was no awkwardness on his side at being the recipient of her secret fears. If anything, he was filled with gratitude that she should show him a wounded, vulnerable side of herself—somehow he doubted that Bella shared her weaknesses with many people.

Perhaps that's why he didn't want to spoil this moment with any more words. He let the silence fall. Outside, the day was ending—soon it would be dark. And yet he couldn't pull away yet.

Bella leaned her face against the cool window.

"The sky is so big here."

She turned around, locking eyes with his. He was close, so close, and she thought the treacherous twilight was playing tricks with her vision, for she could have sworn that his eyes were darker than they had been just an hour ago and that his lips had never been so glistening, so perfect. For a moment, she had the distinct sensation he was going to kiss her, and the picture that formed in her mind was so full and so vivid that she played it out as if it was real—so that, later, she would have to talk herself into accepting it hadn't actually happened.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed his hand moving, and her heart leaped with anticipation. But it stopped on the shift-stick, where her eyes followed it in crushing disappointment. He held it so tight his knuckles turned white.

"We better go back."

She nodded and sagged back into her seat, exhausted.

o o o

Jasper cut the engine outside her house and wished she'd never have to go in. His soul battled between the desire  _ to take, to dive into her and to hell with the consequences _ and his instinct to treat her gently, to handle her with care.

For there was no doubt in his mind that she wanted him just as much as he wanted him, even though perhaps she couldn't see that as lucidly as he could.

But of one thing he was certain: he had to be tread carefully, for she was not just any girl, and the claims his family had staked on her long ago—claims of affection, of friendship doubtlessly marred with possessiveness— flashed like alarm signs all around her.

His family loved and supported him, and his parents wanted to see him happy, but they knew, or at the very least suspected, of his heavy baggage and of his anguish, and there was no telling where they'd side if it ever came to Bella's own happiness.

"Jasper?"

Her voice pulled him from his meandering thoughts, and his name on her lips turned his indecision into a pointless waste of time. For how could he ever try to resist her when she spoke his name so sweetly, so longingly?

He turned around and wished he could commit her indecision, and the trust and bravery that followed, to memory forever.

"I was wondering…" She looked at him and he nodded, encouraging her to go on. "You can call me again. I mean… if you want to. Unless you wanna be alone, which, which is fine, I'd totally get that."

It took all his self-control to resist the impulse to take her and hold her, to kiss hard, to take her breath away.

"I don't wanna be alone. I told you that was bullshit."

Relief made colour spread across her cheeks. He wondered whether her skin felt as warm and feverish as it looked.

He went on.

"Let's do something. We could catch a movie. Tomorrow night?"

He felt like a teenager again, asking a girl out for the first time. But instead of insecure and embarrassed as he'd been then, he felt light, almost euphoric. She looked at him stunned, her mouth slightly open, her eyes wide with surprise, and he laughed, because the whole moment was surreal, and it seemed the only appropriate reaction.

"I'll buy you popcorn, too. And a soda. And you can pick the movie. It's an awesome package. You should get it while you can."

Her smile, her happiness, her excitement turned her face into the most gorgeous sight he'd ever seen. She was so beautiful. He wanted to make her smile like this forever.

"It does sound… awesome. See you tomorrow."

She practically ran out of the car and into the dark house, slamming the door behind her.

Jasper drove away in a car filled with Bella's scent and a lingering, blooming sense of hope.


	13. Chapter 13

The day started with a pewter sky hanging low over the treetops.

Charlie shook Bella awake at six a.m.

"Bella," he whispered, remorseful at disturbing her sleep, "I'm going now."

Bella opened her eyes, confused.

"To Seattle," Charlie continued, "you remember, right?"

Bella nodded sleepily, then managed to mumble " _ have a safe trip _ " before falling back asleep.

She was already dreaming when she heard the door shut and the car pull away, and those were the last sounds to penetrate her consciousness for the next two and a half hours.

The first thing she noticed when she woke was the eerie silence, thicker and duller than usual; then, as she opened her eyes, it was the strange, grey-white light that penetrated the curtains. Finally, as she pulled them open and looked outside, it was the white that engulfed everything—snow covering the ground, the cars, the houses in front in a thin but solid layer, snow falling thickly and fast, big flakes that looked almost fake in their fluffy perfection.

Bella let out a small laugh, excited and disbelieving. She kept staring out her window for a good five minutes, hypnotized by the unfamiliar sight.

Finally, she shook with a shiver and ran for the bathroom. She realized, sitting on the toilet, that it was still early, and that she was cold, and that today… today was the day.

It was like a jolt of electricity and as she sunk back into bed, duvet pulled all the way to her ears, wrapping herself in its comforting warmth.

She had a date.

A date with Jasper Cullen.

_ It was a date, wasn't it? He'd said a movie. Popcorn. Soda. Perhaps he'd meant as friends?  _ She couldn't be sure now. He hadn't given her a time, either, and he'd said to pick a film.

_ Would he be calling her to confirm? Should she?  _ She had his number, too, after all. How were these things done? She figured she should get ready, just in case. She grabbed her laptop and, still in bed, started looking at listings.

There was no theater in Forks, so she assumed they'd drive to Port Angeles, to the multiplex where she'd watched gory horror films with Edward and Seth while Esme waited for them at the pizza place across the road.

She wondered whether Jasper liked action movies ( _ probably not _ )or romantic comedies ( _ most definitely not _ ). _. _

She agonized over whether picking an animated movie would make her seem younger than her eighteen years and remind him of their age difference, so she discarded that option, too.

That didn't leave much else than some serious-sounding drama about the Civil War; it sounded solemn and erudite, and she figured that was the closest to a "Jasper" movie she could hope to find.

The irony of him asking her to choose—presumably to make the evening more enjoyable for her, only to result in a tricky game of second-guessing—was not lost on Bella. It made her realize she knew nothing, really, about Jasper Cullen. Although she no longer felt intimidated in his presence, he was a mystery. And, despite her undeniable attraction to him, she found him inscrutable and enigmatic. Perhaps, she thought, this was what made him attractive in the first place.

What she felt in his presence, this thrilling energy, this irrational pull… she didn't believe it was possible that he didn't feel it, too. Every single one of his looks was like fire, the proximity of his body an aura of power.

And yet she was acutely conscious of the years and miles of words that separated them, of the difference in their thoughts and experience.

All the girls he'd been with—all the girls she knew of, and the ones she didn't. All the people he'd known and the places he'd been and the life he'd lived. Whatever had made him come back, whatever had prompted him to look at her, and to seek something from her… she had no clue.

But she, she had been nowhere, had done nothing, had loved no one. She was untouched, and she felt her inexperience in matters of the heart and of the body like a raw, disfiguring scar.

What did he see when he looked at her? Why did he even look at her? Her heart asked questions her mind could not answer. Would he touch her tonight? Would he ever touch her? She had never wanted another person's touch, but she wanted Jasper's now, and she shivered as she imagined it.

Such longing, such hunger—it burned under her skin with the intensity of a wild fire; it heightened her every sense, focusing her mind and her body on a single pursuit.

_ He would touch her, _ she resolved.  _ She would touch him _ .

o o o

"Look at this weather," Esme said to no one in particular as she spooned some oatmeal into her bowl. Carlisle looked up from his newspaper and turned his face to the window.

"Christmassy, I suppose," he commented, "if it lasts until then."

"I hope they're clearing the roads. Remember two years ago? It took them two days to finally start doing something about the ice and snow down by the post office."

"I called Bella earlier." Esme's words penetrated his consciousness, and suddenly he was completely alert. "I asked her over for dinner, you know. Charlie is in Seattle this weekend."

"Ah, yes. Siobhan's book launch." Carlisle nodded. Jasper wondered who Siobhan was, but didn't voice his question, afraid that it might give away his interest in Bella.

"But she said no, and it was no use insisting. I wonder why. I don't like thinking about her being all alone in that house." Esme frowned "I just hope she's not too lonely, and that she's taking care of herself."

"You said she was looking much better," Carlisle pointed out.

"Oh she is, definitely. But… I don't know. She's still not herself."

Jasper spoke up before he fully considered the consequences of doing so.

"How do you know that? Maybe this is herself. Maybe that's just how she is."

Esme and Carlisle turned to him, surprised by his words and by his tone of finality, astonished that he'd have an opinion about Bella, and that he'd voice it with a confidence bordering on confrontation.

"I mean," he continued, conscious of their eyes on him, "perhaps she's just grown up. You always talk about her as though she's still a kid, like she should still be behaving as she did when she was fourteen. Give her a break."

Esme considered this for a moment. She knew they'd spent some time together in the previous days, but in her mind they were still strangers, and hearing Jasper speaking about Bella was an incongruous and slightly alarming turn of events. She filed it away for later consideration; for the moment, what struck her the most was that what he said was almost certainly true.

"You're right. It's just… we saw her grow up, and she was—is—such an amazing girl. So self-contained, and independent, and so… fierce." Esme laughed, feeling silly all of a sudden, uncomfortable at the way the conversation was going. Why did she have to defend her opinion to her son? Why was she suddenly extolling Bella's virtues to him, as if to convince him of her worth? "I just don't want to think of her unhappy, is all."

"Why would she be unhappy, Mom?"

Jasper's answer was meant kindly, but there was a sharp edge to his tone, a doubt. It was uneasy, this feeling of not knowing enough about Bella, of not knowing everything. It was frustrating that his mother's words made him feel defensive, and then protective of her.

She averted her eyes from him, concentrating on buttering her bread, wanting this conversation to be over.

"She's probably perfectly fine. And once Edward and Seth get home, it'll all be just like old times."

o o o

Esme's words replayed in his mind as Jasper as he sat at his desk after lunch. He had no clear idea what "old times" had been like, but he knew that they hadn't involved  _ him _ .

He wondered whether Bella would, as his mother had supposed, revert to a younger, different version of herself when his brothers arrived—which would be in just a few days. He wondered whether she would join them eagerly, whether they'd run off doing whatever it was they did together. He wondered whether some old, unforgotten loyalty would resurface, some prior claim, some unresolved bond.

He could not imagine a scenario in which he continued to see her and talk to her, in which he'd take for drives and coffee, while Edward and Seth where also in the picture.

A surge of anger rushed through him. This was ridiculous. He was stuck in his childhood home, locked in the attic like some prodigal son, fantasizing over a girl that was probably his younger brothers' puppy love, hanging onto his mother's—his mother, for fuck's sake!— every word.

He should have been studying, cramming and taking practice tests, applying for jobs—God knows he couldn't afford to waste any more time. Instead, he was at the mercy of his emotions, seemingly incapable of getting them under control, and time and energy were slipping away from him.

He lay on his bed and closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm down. He needed to get out of his head. He needed to focus on what he knew was real.

The energy he felt next to her.

The maddening simplicity of her beauty.

Her scent, her voice, the way she moved, the flimsy promise of her body on his.

His want, and the rush of getting ever closer to her, ever closer to touching her, the masochistic pleasure of not letting himself give in.

Tonight. He would see her tonight.

And that—that was something. He could focus on that. That was everything right now.

He grabbed his phone from his nightstand. This time it didn't ring long before she picked up; he imagined she'd been waiting for his call, and the thought calmed him down and excited him all at once.

"Hello." And that voice, that voice, God, did she even know how sexy she sounded, how badly he wanted her. He closed his eyes to savour every vowel, every breath.

"Bella, hi."

"Hi."

He could hear the smile in her voice, and it pleased him.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm watching the snow fall."

He laughed. He pictured her sitting by the window, nose pressed to the glass, like one of Esme's Scandinavian Christmas angels.

"What, all day?"

"More or less. It's my first time seeing snow. Yeah, go ahead an laugh," she was laughing herself now, "I'm a desert child, remember?"

"I remember. I…," he paused, savoring his mental image of her a while longer, "I just can't imagine what it must be like to see snow for the first time as an adult. I envy you, actually." As he said the words, he realized he was talking about so much more than snow, and it was another stab of longing deep in his soul. "So… you like it?"

"I don't know. I haven't dared going out yet. It's pretty but… yeah. I don't know. It looks kind of cold and wet."

"Cold and wet. That's pretty much the definition of snow, Bella. And white. Don't forget white."

"Yes! It's so white! It's so pretty and weird!" She laughed again, and he with her. "But I think I'd feel like a dork, going out in my yard by myself. What would I do, build a snowman? I don't even know how to!"

"Your Dad not around?" Jasper asked, lying, because he already knew—but for some reason he wanted to hear it from her.

"No, he went to Seattle, to see his girlfriend. She had a book launch today, and with this weather, I doubt he'd make it back tonight, even if he wanted."

Jasper paused for a long minute.

"I would offer to come around and teach you how to build snowmen and make snow angels but… I'm not the biggest fan of the stuff, to be honest. I might not be a desert child, but I kind of put myself up for adoption to sunny California."

Then, before the conversation could slip away from them, he brought up the real reason for his call.

"Still up for tonight?" He knew she'd declined his parents' invitation and not told them why. Her half-lie had thrilled him, and he remembered it now with a rush of pleasure.

"Yeah, sure." She paused, and hesitation creeped into her voice, alarming him. "But do you think—do you think it's safe to drive to Port Angeles in this weather?"

Jasper pondered her question. He wondered what she was really asking. Was she looking for a way out? Was she bailing on him?

"You don't wanna go?"

"NO!" she almost shouted. "I mean yes, I do. Shit."

"What?" he teased, amused by her confusion.

"I wanna go. But, seriously, do you think the roads are okay? I looked online and… yeah, they were saying it's going to keep snowing all day and all night. So I thought—I don't know. Maybe it's not safe or something. "

"Let me check." Jasper got up and grabbed his laptop. He could hear Bella breathing at the other end of the line, and the sound was almost as lovely as her voice. The local weather forecast did look pretty bad, with temperatures dropping overnight and an ice alert. "You're right, it's probably not the best idea to drive out on the 101."

He could hear her sigh on the other end of the phone, her silence speaking loudly of her disappointment.

She paused for a little while, gathering her courage.

"You could come here." The hesitation in her voice, the hoarse whisper of the last syllable—Jasper shivered in response.

"To your house?"

"Yeah, I mean, my Dad is gone and... if you think you can drive out here, we could watch a DVD or something. And I have popcorn, so..."

Jasper considered the implications of what she was asking. He couldn't be sure she was entirely conscious of what her offer might sound like. It was disorienting, this not knowing whether her motives were innocent, whether she was being disingenuous. Did it matter? Where his motives unambiguous? Right now, all he knew was that he wanted to see her.

"I'm pretty sure I'd be fine driving down to your house. It's only a couple of miles, and I could take Carlisle's SUV," he thought out loud, rationalizing. "So I think that would be okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"So, I'll see you later? Around 6 o'clock?"

"That sounds… perfect."

o o o

Esme and Carlisle were bewildered when Jasper left the house in the late afternoon.

"What, are you going out? In this weather?"

"Yeah, just for a couple of hours." He was skittish, eager to get out, uncomfortable at having to lie, if only by omission. Then he remembered Bella had also lied to his parents, and the need to get out became almost unbearable. 'I'm not going far, just… can I borrow your car, Dad?"

"Sure," Carlisle answered, and he put a hand on Esme's arm, stopping her from saying the words he knew were coming. He could practically feel her bursting with the curiosity of knowing where he was going and, somehow, he knew it wasn't a good idea to ask. Whoever, whatever Jasper was doing in Forks that evening was not something he was ready to share, and they needed to respect that.

"Just… be careful, okay? It's pretty bad out there."

"Sure, Dad, thanks. I won't be late, and please don't worry."

o o o

It took him almost half an hour to drive the two miles to Bella's house. The roads were indeed pretty bad, and visibility was non-existent in the heavy snowfall. The wheels of the 4x4 barely held their grip on some patches, and the radio he had switched on a low volume kept issuing cautionary advices of avoiding all non-essential travel.

He had to laugh at that. Apparently going to see Bella was essential.

He was driving in a fucking storm to go watch a movie with a girl he barely knew, with no immediate plans for sex and, if he was honest, no real plans for the future.

What was he going to her for?

He knew the answer, deep within himself: for a couple of hours of empty mind and steady soul and limbs alive with possibility. To savor the heady taste of nascent desire. To indulge a fantasy of innocence, of a new start in a parallel universe.

Was that essential? Right now, he felt his life depended on it.

He parked in front of the little house, walking the few yards to the door with a nervous anticipation that surprised him.

He rang the bell and heard her fast steps running down the corridor. She opened the door and there she was, framed by the light of the house, warm-looking and rosy-cheeked, smiling so big her eyes lit up, her hair loose and slightly dishevelled.

_Lovely._

Before he could even register what he was doing, instinct took over, and he leaned in, brushing a quick peck on her cheek. He stood back immediately, embarrassed at his familiar and shockingly intimate gesture, quickly mumbling his hello as he stepped in further into the house.

Bella gasped, stunned. She stood frozen on the spot, and when she turned to him, he saw that her skin was flushed where his lips had made contact with it, her eyes wide, her mouth open, lips quivering with a shallow breath.

He shuddered. If a chaste greeting kiss had the power to ignite her so, how would her body betray her if her really touched her? When he really kissed her?

She closed the front door and leaned against it.

"Hi," she finally said, a small, unusually shy smile on her lips, her eyes avoiding him.

"Hi," he answered back, eager to close the distance but holding himself back lest he scare her once again.

"You've cleared your path," he said, trying to diffuse the tension.

"Uhm, yeah." Bella still looked a bit shaken, but she met his gaze, gradually relaxing.

"I bet that was hard work."

"It was. But," she said with a shrug, "my Dad called me to make sure. I guess he was worried I'd get snowed in. But yeah, I'm exhausted." She moved into the living room and gestured for Jasper to follow her.

She took his coat, careful, he noted, to keep a certain distance between them.

Jasper looked around, puzzled at first, then disconcerted by the strange familiarity of his surroundings.

"It's strange. I have a feeling…" He turned to Bella to find her staring at him with an amused expression. "Have I been here before?"

She chucked and raised her eyebrows in a suggestive fashion.

"What?" He smiled back, unsure of what the joke was.

Bella laughed.

"Really? You don't remember?"

Jasper shook his head. "No. Remember what?"

"Leah Clearwater?" She said it like it was a question and then waited for his reaction.

Jasper's face was blank at first. Then, slowly, understanding dawned on his features, and his mouth opened in surprise.

"Oh." He palmed the back of his neck, embarrassed. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Bella answered with a satisfied smirk.

"And you—you were the kid?"

She nodded. It was embarrassing to relay this incident, but Jasper was clearly bearing the brunt of it now, and she relished the feeling of power that his discomfort gave her.

"I was such a little shit."

He looked at Bella then—really looked at her. Though he had only the vaguest of recollections, it seemed impossible it could have been her, that kid from all those years ago. It had felt like they were in parallel universes then, Bella barely registering as a faceless kid causing him a few minutes of discomfort; but now, now the age difference between them felt irrelevant, a mere detail.

She let herself sink onto the couch and looked up at him with a mischievous smile. He'd never seen this expression on her, and he liked it. He loved it. There was a side, there were so many sides to Bella he didn't know, and he wanted to find them all out.

"Well, you're not the one who's had to sit on this couch with your dad, night after night, knowing what had gone down on it," she teased him gently, challenging him to take a seat next to her.

He did, but he kept his distance and held himself somewhat stiffly.

"Leah Clearwater," he repeated, a faraway look in his eyes. "She was…"

_ She was my first _ , he had been about to say, and all the memories kept flooding him. He had, indeed, been shit to her, never returning her calls when summer was over, avoiding her when he'd bumped into her in town.

"She was nice," he said instead. "Have you heard from her?"

He hadn't thought of Leah in years, and now he felt guilty, belatedly ashamed of the way he'd treated her. He'd been her first, too.

"Well, not from her, but my Dad hangs out with her father sometimes, so I know of her a bit. She's a teacher. In Tacoma, I think. Getting married next Spring, apparently."

Jasper relaxed on hearing this. Bella was looking at him with a puzzled expression. Her blush had disappeared, and her skin was back to its customary pallor, but her eyes looked different, her whole face illuminated by a new, tempting light.

His quick kiss, talking of Leah—sex was in the room, on her mind, definitely on his. There had been a shift, imperceptible perhaps, but definite, and he knew she was as aware of it as he was.

"So, what are we watching, then?" She spoke first, breaking the strange atmosphere. "What did you bring?"

"Well, I'm not sure. I raided my parents' collection, and these seemed the least obscure."

"I'm sure it's fine. You choose."

"I thought the deal was that you'd pick." He was back to teasing her gently. "I don't want to let you down."

"No, really. You choose. I'm terrible at choosing anything. I'll go make popcorn, okay? That's a side of the deal I can easily stick to."

She got up and walked to the kitchen. She put the popcorn bag in the microwave and opened the fridge, pulling out a beer for Jasper and hesitating on getting one for herself. Her father frowned upon her drinking, but in the end, the desire not to look like a clueless kid won out.

They settled on the couch, a safe distance between them. Occasionally, their hands brushed when they reached for the popcorn at the same time, and Jasper when then pull back fast, as though he'd been stung.

He was acutely aware of Bella's presence next to him. From the corner of his eye, he saw her watching the screen, intent, rapt. She had claimed not to care, but now she was transfixed, flinching every time a particularly violent scene came on but never averting her eyes.

He noticed her posture, legs folded to one side, her feet in those infamous blue socks tucked under her, her body slightly angled towards him. His eyes kept travelling to the only exposed stretch of visible skin, a small expanse of her neck and collarbone where her sweater had been pulled to the side. He could see the pulsing of her blood under the skin and wished, suddenly and fiercely, that he could see more of her, more of her skin, of her body. She was tantalizing and irresistible. He didn't want to have to resist her.

Instead, he forced himself to look away from Bella, to focus only on the screen. And it wasn't until the movie was over that he turned to her and realized she'd fallen asleep.

Her head lay at an odd angle, her body twisted in the same position she'd been sitting.

She stirred, prompted, perhaps, by the music that accompanied the rolling credits and shifted closer to him, close enough that he could smell her, hear the soft breathing that left her parted lips—almost a snore—and it made him smile, and it made him want to steal that snore, to swallow it in the lightest of kisses, to brush his lips on the dark shadows under her eyes, to feel her cheekbones and the curve of her nose.

The temptation to touch her, and the effort it took to rein it in consumed him—surely there was no moment more perfect than this: What would she do if she woke up to find his lips on hers, his body cradling her, his hands holding her? Would she run, or would she welcome him?

Just then, with a start, Bella opened her eyes: disoriented at first, then horrified as realization hit her.

"I fell asleep," she mumbled, and her voice was even rougher than usual, groggy with sleep.

Jasper laughed gently.

"You did," he whispered

"Did I snore?" she asked, urgently, her eyes huge with embarrassment.

"No," he said quietly, "not much."

Her face crumpled in shame and mortification, and all that Jasper could think was to kiss her, kiss her now, take her breath away, taste her till she'd forget her self-consciousness, and he'd forget the taste of anyone else before her.

"It's okay," he said in a soothing and lightly humorous voice, "It was really cute."

She still wouldn't meet his eyes, so he dared to reach out and brush a strand of hair from her face, letting his hand linger a moment too long on the side of her head. She closed her eyes, and he felt her lean into his touch.

Jasper didn't know if he'd ever experienced a moment of such tenderness in his life.

"You must have been exhausted."

She nodded, and pulled back from him. His hand felt heavy and empty without her contact.

"I… it's all the shoveling." She grimaced as she rolled her shoulders and slowly shook her head from side to side to stretch her neck.

"You shouldn't exert yourself like that. You should take care of yourself." His words echoed Esme's earlier warnings and their protectiveness surprised him.

Bella shook her head.

"It never used to be like this. I used to be strong. I was an athlete. Now I'm just… I can't do anything. I fall asleep on the couch, like a grandma. You must think I'm such a loser."

She turned away from him, trying to hide her pained expression, her eyes brimming with tears. She'd had such high expectations for this evening, and it had all come to nothing.

"Hey," Jasper said, kneeling onto the floor in front of her, taking her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him. "Bella, look at me." She refused at first, keeping her eyes fixed on the wall.

"Look at me, come on," he insisted, coaxing her until she finally turned to him.

Her eyes were big and sad, and she was so beautiful his heart broke a little.

"Bella. I don't think you're a loser. Not at all. I had—I'm having—a great time."

She snorted bitterly at this and rolled her eyes. "Right."

"It's true. I like spending time with you. Even when you're asleep. You think I'd be here otherwise?"

"I don't know."

"You're just really tired, is all. And shoveling snow is an extreme way to get back to exercise if you've been unwell for a while. You should try something gentler."

"Like what?"

"Like swimming. You said you haven't gone back in the water since before the summer. Well, maybe it's time."

"I'm scared," she whispered hoarsely in response.

"Scared? Really? I can't picture you being scared. I remember you, a few summers ago. You were fearless. You swam better and faster than me, and you were just a kid then."

She nodded, remembering that evening in Oregon. It seemed so long ago.

"But now… I don't know. What if I panic—what if it's horrible? I don't know."

"I could come with you." He was aware that his motives on suggesting this weren't entirely pure: a combination of trying to cheer her up and wanting to remove the layers of winter clothing that shielded her body from his.

"Yeah? You would?" In her eyes he saw the same mix of trust and desire he was feeling, and his heart soared.

"Sure."

"I think... I'd like that."

o o o

He left shortly afterwards. The snow had stopped falling, and everything was white, quiet and beautiful.

He fought the instinct of kissing her goodbye, leaning in towards her, his head against the doorjamb, close to hers as he headed out into the night.

"You going to be okay on your own?" He asked, low and protective, and she looked up and nodded, her eyes fixed into his.

"Will you promise me something?"

She nodded again, and he had to fight against every instinct that told him to take her, hold her tight in his arms. She moved imperceptibly closer to him, mirroring his need for contact, until he could feel her breath on his chin. It would be nothing to kiss her now. It would be everything to kiss her now.

"Call me if there's anything. I'm here. I'm here for you, okay?"

"Okay."

o o o

The house was dark and silent when he got home. Esme had left some leftovers for him on the kitchen table. He ate quickly, standing up, then walked quietly through the empty living room. He sat by the window, admiring the view that had looked so isolating and barren earlier, but which now exuded a strange sense of serenity.

His phone beeped in his pocket. He pulled it out and read the text:

_Thank you for tonight. Everything is fine. x B_

He smiled and quickly typed his response:

_Everything will be fine. Sweet dreams, Bella._

  
  



	14. Chapter 14

"Ready?"

Bella nodded. She took a deep breath, moved her neck from side to side, and shook her shoulders the way she used to before getting into the water. Years of practice had made the ritualistic gesture into reflex, her body preparing almost unconsciously.

In truth, she felt anything but ready. The smell of chlorine, the noise of splashing and limbs hitting water, the dense, humid air- all of it brought back memories of the last time she'd been in a pool. Her vision darkened, tunneling into nothingness. For a long, surreal moment the old, run-down Port Angeles public pool faded away to be replaced by the bright modern facility of her school in Arizona, and the hesitant confidence she'd felt in the run up to today disappeared, replaced with a mounting sense of panic.

Memories of the last time she'd been in the water came back to her: the intense physical discomfort she'd experienced, the traumatic emotional turmoil that had ensued. Just thinking about how she had felt that day made her limbs feel heavy and painful, her head sore, her heart full of the loneliness and fear that she had experienced for so many weeks afterwards. She had relived her last swim, distorted and amplified, so many times in her dreams that she could no longer remember what it had been like in reality.

The water looked cold, its surface forbidding.

Bella's breathing picked up, and her neck tensed again, despite her earlier stretching. She closed her eyes and felt the tight grip of panic all around her.

"Bella?" Jasper's voice and his hand on her arm snapped her out of it.

She opened her eyes and found him standing right in front of her, his body shielding hers, his hand gentle but steady. She was level with his chest, and she noticed, with a shock, the sparse blond hair that curled over it, soft-looking and surprisingly enticing. All fear was forgotten as she forced her hands to still, to resist a deep desire to touch it, to discover what it felt like under her fingers, to follow its path upwards, towards his pulsating Adam's apple, or downwards, towards his perfect, eye-shaped navel.

Bella had grown up around half-naked boys. Her teammates' shaved torsos and tight Speedos had been so familiar as to be irrelevant in their smooth perfection. But this—chest hair and baggy swimming trunks, the sort she imagined Californian boys wore to the beach—this was something else entirely. It made her stomach tighten and her fingers tingle; it went to her head and emptied it of all thought. It filled her body with purpose and relaxed it of all tension.

She looked up at Jasper, meeting his eyes, and smiled shyly, sure that her cheeks were burning, convinced that he could tell how badly she wanted to lay her cheek on his chest.

"Yeah," she answered in a breath, forgetting what he'd said, what he'd asked. "Yeah, I'm ready."

"Everything okay?" Jasper's voice was soft and gentle, close to her, caressing her with its quiet concern.

She nodded quickly. "Let's do it."

She turned away from him and, without further thought, stepped all the way to the edge of the pool. She took a deep breath and dived in right away, her arms perfectly straight over her head, her legs springing powerfully away from the edge.

o o o

The second it took her to hit the water seemed to go on forever. A hint of fear rushed through her, the crazy notion she could somehow stop the inevitable, turn back to dry land, avoid the impact.

But then it was cold and fresh, and the adrenaline turned into something familiar and comforting. She opened her eyes underwater and swam as far as her breath could take her—nowhere near as fast or long as she used to be able to—and soon, too soon, she surfaced. Instead of swimming on, as she would have done in the past, she stilled and turned around, and there was Jasper standing at the end of the pool, looking at her intently, his face illuminated by a serious, solemn smile.

She smiled back, big this time, and called out to him.

"Come in!" she said, not loud enough for him to hear her.

Jasper read the words on her lips and the expectation in the way her brow furrowed. He walked to the edge of the pool slowly and paused for a long moment before jumping in.

He hesitated, partly because he was still reeling from Bella's perfect dive, from the way she'd sprung effortlessly and glided into the water with barely a splash, and was self-conscious at his comparative lack of skills, partly because the last few minutes had been so intense, and he had to rebalance himself before he could rejoin her.

Bella had been nervous and hesitant during the drive here and then downright scared as they had approached the water. He'd seen it all flash through her eyes; he'd seen her body tense and release, her breath catch and then even out as wave after wave of feeling crashed through her, her face incapable of hiding any of it. She was like an open book, so easy to read, yet no less enticing for it. He'd taken her confused emotions and wrapped them around himself, absorbing them, deflecting them.

Above all, he'd seen her body, unclothed, uncovered, real.

He had known before today that she was tall and lithe, but he had no idea she was so physically perfect. Her shoulders were strong, and her back straight, her neck truly like a swan's, her collarbone sharp and delicate, appealing in a maddening, incomprehensible way.

He'd appreciated her long legs, but he had no idea that they were so lean and muscular, and, above all, he could not have possibly imagined that her baggy jeans and sweaters had hidden such a fine, gorgeous ass.

And the rest of her—he'd tried not to stare, he'd forced himself to be satisfied with a brief glimpse, but he had seen her breasts through the simple black swimsuit, small and round and inviting. He was sure he was not going to be able to think of anything else from now on.

He had thought her pretty before today, a lovely thing, beautiful even when she looked at him with her brown eyes wide open in wonder and apprehension; he'd thought about her a lot, had surprised himself with the sweet desire to be near enough that he could smell her.

But now… now that he'd seen her almost naked, now that he'd seen her beautiful body and the way she inhabited it with confidence and strength—now he wanted to kiss her, to feel her. She was not the child his brothers had befriended, not the girl his parents seemed so worried about. She was a woman, and everything about her sang to him.

Conscious of Bella's gaze on him, Jasper shook his head to clear his thoughts and jumped into the water clumsily, not even attempting to dive. He swam the few yards out to her slowly, his eyes fixed on hers, wanting to stretch their distance out for as long as he could. A few people were swimming leisurely around them, but the pool was half empty in the early afternoon.

Bella waited for him, almost still, her face serene, expectant.  _ Like a flower _ , he thought, a water lily, floating gently, aloof, completely in her element.

"How does it feel?" he asked when he reached her. Her lips and eyelashes were glistening with diamond-like droplets.

"It's fine." Her smile was wide and sincere. She moved her arms lazily, just enough to keep her afloat, expending the least possible amount of energy. "It's better than fine. It's great."

"See? It was just a matter of taking the plunge."

She nodded. "I want to swim a bit. Is that okay?"

"That's what we're here for. Go for it."

"Race me?"

Did she have any idea how suggestive she sounded, how much her words made him want to lose his mind? He had to laugh, purely to clear his head of the possibility that she might.

"No fucking way," he laughed, "I didn't come here to be humiliated. You do your thing. I'll do mine."

She nodded and dived in, gently at first, an easy, unhurried freestyle, effortless to watch, beautifully precise. Jasper admired her from an increasing distance, taking his time to start swimming himself. She reached the end of the lane, then flipped over and started a faster, powerful backstroke that soon had people clearing out of the lane to make way for her. Jasper himself moved over and swam slowly, leisurely, keeping an eye on her, stopping to observe her from time to time.

They kept going for half an hour—Bella swimming in a lane of her own, alternating different styles and paces, but ultimately reverting back to the backstroke that seemed to come easiest to her. Jasper found a steady rhythm of his own which soon allowed him to lose himself in thought, until his mind was beautifully still, and he felt completely, utterly balanced. Every once in a while he stopped and looked out for her, admiring how striking and purposeful she was, how commanding. A strange feeling, a mix of pride and awe, and a stinging desire to own some her power and talent, to possess it, took hold of him.

He noticed now that she had slowed down somewhat and that her movements were becoming jerkier, less coordinated. He swam out to her while she rested, holding on to the ledge of the pool, and stopped next to her.

Their elbows touched. Her skin was glistening wet, her hair dark and long against her shoulders, a striking contrast to her pale, fine skin. Her goggles, which now rested atop her head, had left red marks all around her eyes, which only served to emphasize their beautiful almond shape and the depth of their color. She was panting lightly with the effort, her chest heaving rhythmically, the vibrations reverberating in his own body through their single point of contact.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she answered, a little out of breath, "it's great. Thank you so much for making me do this."

She smiled and leaned her head down on her arms so that she looked at him sideways, in an intimate, almost childlike gesture.

"You're welcome." He smiled back, wishing he could move even closer.

From the corner of his eye, Jasper noticed something dark on Bella's shoulder. Instinctively, he reached out to touch it, and startled when he realized what it was.

"A tattoo?" he asked, his brow arched.

Bella nodded and turned her face towards it, focusing her gaze on the same spot as Jasper's, their faces now so close.

"What is it?" he asked, tracing it again, this time more slowly, his fingerpad sliding easily on the wet skin. Bella shivered in response, and a small sound escaped her lips. Jasper pulled away, surprised as much by her reaction as by the white-hot desire to touch her again.

"It's… letters. E and S." She waited to see whether that made sense to Jasper, then continued when she saw that this provoked no reaction. "Edward and Seth."

Jasper's eyes darted quickly from her shoulder blade to her face. He was surprised and, she thought, a little hurt.

"My brothers," he said, with odd finality. "Right."

He turned away, overwhelmed by a sudden surge of irrational jealousy.  _ It means nothing _ , he told himself.  _ Something they did as kids _ . Yet the fact she was branded with their names, that she had, at some point in her life, felt so much for his brothers that she'd want to have their initials emblazoned forever on her skin served as a painful reminder that they shared an intense bond he knew nothing about.

He put some distance between them and looked away.

Next to him, Bella shivered again, distracting him from his confused thoughts, bringing him back to the here and now. To her.

"Are you getting tired?" he said instead. "Should we get out?" His voice had an edge of tenderness that was unfamiliar to his own ears.

"I'm just cold… we can stay longer if you want."

She sounded hesitant; her ease and lightheartedness from just a few minutes before dissipated in the awkwardness that had followed the discovery of her tiny inked symbol.

"No, no that's fine. We should get out."

He pushed away from the edge, aiming to get to the ladder a few yards away. But instead of pushing right past Bella, he stopped just behind her, placing his arms on either side of her as he rested his hands on the edge of the pool. He got as close as he could without actually touching her, aiming to keep a thin layer of water between them. But perhaps because she didn't appreciate how close he was, or maybe precisely because she wanted to get closer, she turned around so her whole body came into contact with his.

They stood still, gazing at each other, each shocked by their sudden physical intimacy. Jasper felt her everywhere- around his legs, against his groin, on his chest.

Rational thought left him. All he could feel was Bella. All he could see was Bella. All he could hear was the sound of blood pounding in his ears.

All he wanted was to taste her. And so he did. It took no time at all— her mouth was already so close, her lips already wet, her eyes wide open—waiting for him.

He kissed her before he realized he was doing it. Before he could consider whether he should or why he shouldn't. He kissed her, and she was sweet and soft and stunned.

He kissed her and pulled away before she realized, before she could respond.

"Bella," he whispered.

"Yeah," she answered, low and hoarse.

"You're an amazing swimmer. I loved watching you today."

His gaze was intent, his voice eager, and he swore he could feel the vibrations of her heart beating through the water around them.

"Jasper…," she answered longingly, and his name on her lips in this strange suspended moment was like a sweet siren song, tender and soothing the very depths of his soul.

"Thank you," he said, and meant it, even though it was an awkward thing to say right then.

"Thank you," she answered, and she smiled big, her red and trembling.

Jasper let go abruptly and reached out for the ladder. Bella climbed up before him, her skin covered in goosebumps as the chilled air hit it. He followed quickly after her, then grabbed her towel from the nearby rail. He opened it up for her and hugged it tight against her.

He held her snug in her blue towel, keeping her close against his chest. She kept her head bent because she couldn't imagine looking up at him right now, overwhelmed with emotion and feeling and desire.

He held her until he started shivering himself, until he felt her stiffen in his embrace. Reluctantly, he pulled away, keeping his hands on her shoulders. She looked up at him, then raised her head to meet his gaze straight on. There was fire and trepidation; there was a question. He smiled and ran his hand across her cheek. Her eyes fluttered shut in response. He saw her mouth, waiting, inviting, and for a moment he wanted to do it again, to kiss her properly, to see how different it would be if it wasn't a surprise. Instead, he moved his hand towards her lips, running a finger against them slowly, relishing the sweet torture he was inflicting on her.

o o o

Later, after each had taken their time showering and getting dressed in their separate changing rooms, they met in the cafeteria, a simple area overlooking the pool, separated by a large glass window. They could see the swimmers below but couldn't hear any noise. The restaurant was almost empty, and they carried their trays to the table in the furthest corner.

Bella let go of her shoulder bag heavily, letting it hit the ground with a thud. She sat down and let out a huge sigh.

"I'm starving," she said as she unwrapped a large tuna sandwich. She tried to act nonchalant, to ignore what had happened, flustered and confused by it all.

Jasper sat down in front of her slowly. Her wet hair hung loosely on her shoulders; her cheeks were flushed from the shower. She smelled of fruity shampoo and clean skin, and her eyes were dancing with joy. The tiredness and self-consciousness that had hung over her ever since their first encounter in his mother's kitchen seemed to have lifted, and she was illuminated with energy and purpose. He watched her take a large bite out of her sandwich and smiled.

"That sandwich looks awesome," he said, ironically.

"Mmmhh," she answered, swallowing quickly, "it isn't, actually, but right now, it's exactly what I need."

Jasper opened the pack of chips he'd picked up and started eating them slowly.

"I guess the Port Angeles public pool is not exactly a culinary hotspot."

"It could be worse."

"I find it hard to believe."

"Trust me, I speak from experience. I think I've been to every single public swimming pool in Arizona and New Mexico, and anything better than a vending machine counts as major success."

Jasper smiled, considering her.

"Do you miss home?"

"No... not really. I like it here." She didn't dare looking at him, in case he read too much—or too little—into her words. "It used to be my favorite place in the world."

Jasper arched eyebrow, urging her to go on. He leaned a bit further into the table, to catch her words and catch her scent.

"I had a freedom here than I could never have in Phoenix. My life there... it was always so regimented. School and practice and those horrible social events my stepfather insisted I attend." She paused, thinking that Phil and Renee were probably in the thick of their grueling Christmas season. "But here, here I roamed. My Dad let me do whatever I wanted. I could wake up at noon and be outside all day and get as muddy and sweaty as I wanted. No one was on my back to tell me to brush my hair, to tuck in my blouse, to not chew my nails."

Jasper smiled, half-remembering, half-inventing the little girl she was describing, tomboyish and serious and determined.

"And your family took me in," Bella continued, on a roll now, "and I felt safe, and loved, and... I don't know. It's like anything that ever mattered in my life happened here, which is crazy, 'cause it was only a few weeks a year."

He looked at her intently. He wondered whether he was one of the things that mattered in her life. He wanted to be the thing that mattered most in her life, here, now. He remembered the feeling of her body against his and knew that, to him, she mattered more than anything.

"My brothers, my parents… They all love you so much. It's kind of scary, actually."

"Why scary?"

"Because they know you... they own you." He paused, astonished at the violence of his possessiveness. "And I don't."

The only sound in Bella's ears was her own heart and the pulsing of her blood in her veins. She was incredulous, unsettled, and turned on by his harsh words.

"You want to own me?" She tried to make it sound as a joke, to keep her tone light, but it came out strangled and hoarse.

"No."  _ Yes _ . "Of course not." He was suddenly caught off-guard, torn between wanting to spell out the truth and coating it in a way that seemed less aggressive, less predatory. "But I want to know you. That's… that's okay, right?"

"Sure. I mean, I want you to know me, too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"So... where do we start?"

"Now? You wanna do it now, like… a thing?" She laughed, flustered.

"Yeah, like a thing. Why not?" he laughed back, loving the way she seemed shy under his gaze, shy but not reticent, intrigued and wanting to hide it.

"Okay, then. Fine. You tell me what you want to know."

"Well, I already know that you're an only child, your parents are divorced... You're a great swimmer"

"Were."

"Are. I've seen you."

She looked away, away from his compliments and his intense stare. He continued.

"I know you don't dry your hair when you wash it. That you have a tattoo."

"Sounds like you've got it all figured out. Is there anything you actually want to know?"

"Well... the obvious, I guess. Do you have a boyfriend?

"No. No boyfriend."

"No one special, back in Arizona?"

"No... no one back home."

Jasper looked at her, studying her intently. He wanted to know more. He wanted to know everything. But the things he wanted couldn't be asked, not in words anyway. He went on, pushing her just a little bit farther, hoping to see her blush.

"Was there ever anyone special?"

He was rewarded with her eyes growing wide and her cheeks pinking up, and with the riveting sight of Bella struggling with how much truth she should reveal to a question that could mean so many different things.

He saw her inexperience, the embarrassment it brought her, the temptation to conceal her innocence, to evade his question.

In the end, she chose the simplest, hardest answer:

"No. Never."

They were silent for a few minutes after that, the remains of their food idle on the red plastic trays.

"What about you?" Bella asked finally, her voice snapping the pregnant silence.

"What about me?" Jasper echoed her words, still not looking up, his focus seemingly entirely absorbed by peeling off the paper label on his bottle of water.

"Is there anyone?" Bella swallowed. It was so hard to ask. "I mean… do you have a girlfriend, somewhere?"

He looked up, his blue eyes wide with astonishment. He hadn't had a girlfriend since Alice; there had been someone, but, right now, she seemed distant, irrelevant. A memory of Maria flashed past, black eyes and black hair and dark red lips, a tight skirt hitched up to her waist, her back against the wall and her nails digging in his scalp. It felt like a lifetime ago.

"There's no one."

Bella struggled for a few minutes to process what he'd told her and to find the courage to ask some questions of her own.

"Jasper... can I ask you something too?" she finally said, her voice small, irritatingly shy to her own ears. He nodded at her, curious and wary.

"Why are you here? What happened?"

He looked away from her, towards the water below them. It occurred to him that his being home might have been talked about, that Esme might have already given some explanation to Bella for his presence in Forks.

"My Mom didn't tell you?"

Bella shook her head.

"My Dad said... you had some kind of breakdown." She stopped, embarrassed to continue, afraid to hit a barrier. "I'm sorry, I don't know if this is okay."

Jasper let out a small, bitter laugh.

"Don't be sorry. Your Dad is right. That's what happened, more or less."

Bella swallowed, feeling out of her depth now, unsure how much she could push, how much she should let it go. But he'd said he wanted to know her, hadn't he? He'd kissed her. Surely it was okay to ask some questions, too, even if they were awkward and painful.

"Was it because of work?"

He shrugged.

"In part, yes. But it wasn't really just that."

He continued looking away, silent. Bella was quiet, too, holding her breath.

"There was a woman."

His words sounded harsh, final to Bella. A woman. Not a girl. A woman who wasn't a girlfriend.

"You want to tell me about her?"

Jasper shook his head. His mind was suddenly filled with images of Maria, of bodies and drugs, of the smell of sweat and booze and expensive car leather seats. In front of him stood Bella, pale and lovely and sweet, asking him about it all. The contrast between what he carried in his heart and what he saw before his eyes was so violent it made him nauseous.

"Do I want to tell you about her? I don't know. You'd probably want to run away in the opposite direction, if I did."

Bella smiled shyly. She wanted him to take her seriously. She wanted him to see her as someone who could be entrusted with secrets, challenged with unsavorable truths.

"I don't think that's possible."

"Bella... you're so sweet. Your sweetness kills me, sometimes."

"You make it sound like that's a problem."

He grabbed her hand across the table, folding it easily within his own. "God Bella... no. It's beautiful. You're beautiful."

She moved her hand away.

"But you still won't tell me."

"Does it mean so much to you?"

"Yes. I want to know you, too."

He looked at her intently. She held his gaze.

"Her name was Maria," he began. "She was older. She was... married."

He let the words linger, hoping they would be enough.

"I understand."

"Do you Bella, really? How can you understand?" His voice was gently goading, incredulous.

"Is it so hard to understand?" Bella answered, animated by a growing passion. "That she fell in love with you, even though she was older and not free?"

Jasper laughed again.

"Love... it was nothing like that, trust me."

"What, then. What was it?"

She wasn't going to let it go. She wasn't going to let him go. It forced Jasper to articulate things he'd kept buried and murky.

"I guess... she wanted me. I don't know. she wanted to have me. I was like a game to her, or... I don't know. A diversion."

"She used you."

"It's not so simple. I was willing. I wanted her to. We did things..."

He paused for a long moment.

"She hurt you." Bella's voice was low but surprisingly steady, filled with trust and understanding.

"I was an idiot, Bella."

"You're too hard on yourself. We all make mistakes."

He reached out for her hand again and this time entwined his fingers with hers, holding it tight. He smiled at her, a tender smile only barely infused with regret.

"And what about you, Bella... have you made many mistakes?

"I don't know... I guess not." She paused. "Not yet, at least."

  
  


o o o

In her room, later that night, Bella kept replaying the events of the day, Jasper's words. His eyes, his body. His touch, the way his finger had lingered on her shoulder, the way she'd pressed herself against him in the water, what it had felt to be held in his arms— that heady combination of claustrophobia and surrender. But above all, his mouth, his lips- so sudden and so forceful, so fleeting. She touched her lips and felt herself go weak, remember the shock and the elation that he'd caused her, the sharp thrill of his words when he'd hinted at his past with that woman.

She was confused at the fact that he kissed her and then pulled away. What was holding him back? How much longer for?

The drive back from Port Angeles had been quiet and strangely tense; she had been exhausted with both the physical exertion and the emotional backlash of an afternoon of physical proximity and what had felt like incredibly intimate conversation. Jasper had been distant, absent, as if pulling back from everything. He hadn't touched her at all, not even to wish her goodbye.

Her computer beeped and pulled her out of her reverie. She sat up straighter and brought it back to her knees, then opened up her chat window.

Edward.

She hadn't spoken to him in months, hadn't seen him in almost two years; now, seeing his name and the little guitar icon pop up on her screen made her realize how much she had missed him.

"You there?"

"Yes!"

"Hi."

"How's New York?"

"Cold. Amazing."

"You'll have to tell me everything."

"Are you really in Forks?"

"Yeah. Seth told you?

"And Mom."

"Right. It's weird being here in winter, without you guys."

"You must be so bored."

No, she wanted to say. Strange and suspended and slow, but not bored. Alive.

"Yeah, I guess. Seth is coming the day after tomorrow, so… he said he wasn't sure you'd come for Christmas."

"Well, I wasn't gonna, but yeah… I'll be there on the 23rd"

"Cool. I want all the stories."

"What stories."

"Oh come on! All of them. Music girls work.. everything."

"Only if you tell me yours."

"Yeah well, I don't have any."

As she typed the words, she felt like a liar. Jasper and her… it was not a story yet, more of a prologue, a hope and a prayer. But even if it did become something more, would she have the words to tell it to Edward?

o o o

Jasper felt like the biggest idiot on the planet and a self-flagellating martyr.

He'd held her. He'd had her. She had melted into him and looked in his eyes in a way that didn't leave any room for doubt. He had, inexplicably, let her go just as it had all become crystal clear to him: that he wanted her, that he wanted her naked, that he wanted to be inside her in every possible way.

Even now, just thinking of her made him hard and light-headed, angry that he had denied himself, confused at the reason behind it.

Her lack of experience, her innocence, her unadulterated desire—all of it only served to highlight his own less than edifying past. The fact that she'd barely flinched when he'd started telling her about Maria was further proof that she really had no clue what she was asking for.

Above all, if he was honest, he feared her lack of self-defense: for she was so willing, so ready, so open, and he was not sure that, once he started, he could ever refrain from taking it all, too quickly and too roughly.

When he closed his eyes all he could see was Bella's black bathing suit and her wet, smooth skin.

  
  



	15. Chapter 15

Her legs were warm, too warm, uncomfortable under the heavy weight. She turned to her side, felt the pressure slide off and in its stead a comforting, enveloping presence settling in next to her.

She felt it all— lips and hands and breathing and the tickling of his curls over her neck.

_ Here _ .

_I knew you'd be here._

_I knew you'd come._

Sighing, she leaned into him, burying her face into his chest, seeking the spot under his arm where his scent was strongest and most arousing. She pushed her tongue out, desperate to taste him, frustrated that all she encountered was soft cotton. He shifted under her frantic movements, moving away, and she turned on to her back in frustration. She parted her legs to push him further into her, greedy, desperate, but he stilled her, his hands cool against the burning skin of her waist.

" _ Shhh… _ ." His voice was so low, a faraway whisper. " _ Bella, baby. Stay still. _ "

_Touch me._

"Your hands… so cool." She spoke slowly, words stretching into the night. "They feel so good. I knew you'd feel so good."

" _ Be still, _ " he said again, and it took all her willpower and God knows how long until she finally complied.

" _ Good girl. _ " He breathed the words into her ear, and she shivered. Slowly, as if to reward her for her good behavior, his cool, strong hands started travelling from her waist down to her ass, leaving behind trails of goosebumps and delight.

He didn't linger, didn't pause in any one spot. No sooner had his fingers traveled down her thighs, hooked around her knees a little to prevent her from losing balance, they were back on her stomach, delicious and maddening, and she felt herself falling, falling, as she waited in ecstatic agony for them to reach her breasts.

Surely, she thought, surely she would catch fire any minute now. Surely she would, unless he could douse this fire with his hands, his lips, his voice, anything, anything to make the blaze cool down. She pushed her chest out, tried to sit up to get closer to him, closer, and why was he pulling away now? Why was his scent becoming fainter? Where were his hands?

_Say my name._

_Make me yours._

" _ Bella." _

_Say it again. Say my name. Jasper… stay._

"Bella… Bella, wake up."

This voice was distant, far away from her skin and her bed. It was familiar, but it was not  _ his _ voice.

"Bella, sweetie, come on. Wake up. You're burning up, let me take your temperature."

She opened her eyes and shook her head, refusing to let go, refusing to let him go.

Reluctantly, she turned towards the voice. Her father was standing next to her bed, and she was lying in a tangled, sweaty mess of blankets and pillows.

"Dad," she said, and there were tears in her voice, a crushing realization that she'd been dreaming, that the fire she felt was her altered body temperature, that the voice, the hands, the scent she'd delighted in just minutes before were not real.

"How long have you been here?" she asked, mortified that he might have heard or seen too much.

"I just came in. I got up to go to the bathroom, and I heard you talking in your sleep, tossing and turning," Charlie said as he gently placed the thermometer in her ear. "There. 102. It's high, Bells." He furrowed his brow, slipping into professional mode. "Let me grab you some Tylenol. Do you hurt anywhere? Head, throat?"

Bella closed her eyes again, running a hand over her sweaty forehead, pushing her hair out of the way. She felt confused and exhausted, desperate to fall back into the deep, vivid dreams she'd been relishing just a few moments ago, terrified she wouldn't be able to recapture them.

"I feel fine, Dad, really." She spoke hurriedly, her words jumbled together too quickly, and she could see he didn't believe her. He insisted on shining a light in her mouth, in her ears, taking her pulse and her blood pressure.

She quickly took the pills Charlie proffered and drank the cold water in big gulps. She ignored his worried face, the way he lingered, unsure.

"You should be more careful, Bella. You over-exerted yourself at the pool. Take it easy, you know." His words were stern, but his tone was soothing, concerned.

"Dad," she said, as she sunk back on her pillow, "it's nothing. Just a cold. Sleep now."

Charlie switched her bedside lamp off and stood up, resisting the temptation to kiss her forehead. Bella sunk back into uneasy sleep, but even as consciousness evaded her she was painfully aware that the hands on her body had been her own, that the voice in her ears was just a whisper of her memory, and that the yearning she felt would not be filled.

o o o

She woke up with a start, her throat parched, her lips dry and chapped. Her whole body ached from being horizontal for too long. She opened her eyes, sticky with sleep, pushed herself up on heavy arms. Her head was tired but clear, her stomach growling with hunger. The clock on her phone told her it was almost lunchtime—had she really been asleep all his time?

She felt the hangover of last night's fever all over her body. The temperature had come and gone, leaving her sweaty and weak, in desperate need of a shower and some breakfast. There was a dull aura of throbbing behind her eyes, but she noted with some relief that she wasn't feeling real pain anywhere, that the tiredness she felt was normal and transitory, not the hopeless exhaustion that had dogged her through the summer and fall months.

She remembered reading somewhere that this could happen, sometimes—sudden fevers, harsh and quick— but not what it meant: Was it a relapse? An alarm bell? Just one of those things no one really understood?

As she stepped under the shower ,she was suddenly assaulted by the memory of last night's dreams. So vivid as to have almost been real, imagery so defined and erotic as to cause her legs to buckle and her mouth to emit a loud whimper. Jasper's arms, his warm breath and his cool hands—all of this felt so real, as though she'd really lived through it, rather than just having dreamed it.

She had to sit down on the edge of the tub, lightheaded now, dizzy with the onslaught of desire. She could still feel the barely-there weight of Jasper's lips on her own the previous day at the pool, his body close to her, the way he'd held her against his chest, in her towel, pulling her close but keeping a distance between them… that, that had been real, and she felt with great clarity that that simple kiss had stirred her awake, kicked open a previously tightly guarded storm of needs and wants.

o o o

She stumbled downstairs, the house full of the smell of coffee and the sound of soft music playing. There was a light, an animation that was unusual and unsettling—the house was alive, lived in, full of energy.

She found Siobhan sitting at the kitchen table, her large body wrapped in a brightly colored silk robe, her dark blonde hair wild and matted, a coffee mug next to her open laptop.

"Bella!" she exclaimed when she saw her walking in, and in a second she was all over her, enveloping her in a warm, giddy hug. "You're up! How are you sweetie?"

She pulled back, holding Bella's shoulders, scrutinizing her for signs of illness.

All she found was a stunned look. Bella hadn't seen Siobhan in years, had barely exchanged a couple of Christmas cards and messages, and she had no idea she was in the house. She was a tornado of unexpected familiarity.

"When did you get here?" she stuttered, her voice croaky from lack of use.

"Oh, late last night. You were already asleep," Siobhan steered her onto a chair and poured some coffee in a cup for her, moving briskly and efficiently, talking fast and breezily. "You gave Charlie quite a scare! He says hi, by the way, and not to overwhelm you too much." She winked before turning around and grabbed the cereal from the cabinet.

She filled Bella's bowl and poured in the milk, putting it in front of her with a flourish.

"I'm not overwhelming you, am I?" She smiled, finally sitting back down in front of Bella.

"Only a little bit." Bella smiled back. "I wasn't expecting you."

Siobhan was quiet then, giving Bella time to drink her coffee and eat some breakfast. The radio played Christmas songs in the background.

"How are you feeling?" The older woman spoke up, in a gentler, caring tone.

"Yeah, okay. A bit tired but… okay." She took a long pull of her coffee, relishing its warmth, the slightly bitter taste. "Was Charlie really worried? I should call him. It's nothing, I think. Just a bug."

Siobhan nodded.

"He came to check on you before he went to work. But yeah, give him a call. Oh!" she exclaimed, excitement returning to her voice," I almost forgot! This came for you this morning!"

She grabbed a large UPS parcel from under the table. Bella's name was scribbled in Renee's spiky script and Bella smiled.

"I'm guessing Santa came early," Siobhan kept talking, "or at least his rather hunky helper in a UPS truck." She chuckled at her own joke, and Bella couldn't help but join in. Siobhan was sort of inappropriate and larger than life, but her cheer was infectious, and just what this house needed.

o o o

The house had been bustling with Esme's feverish Christmas preparations. She'd hung lights, lit candles, unearthed huge boxes of decorations from the garage and dusted each one of them individually. Jasper had heard her move furniture in the hallway, making room for the tree that would be delivered tomorrow.

He remembered when they were kids, how the real excitement started on the morning of Christmas eve, how they'd spend the day singing carols and drinking warm, sweetly spiced apple juice while Esme cooked and baked.

The Christmas Eve party had been a Cullen tradition for as long as Jasper could remember, the culmination of a day of intense and heartfelt celebration.

There would be lights and wine, and the whole house would cast a glow on the surrounding forest. Cars would line up along the driveway, guests would be ringing the doorbell excitedly, presents and bottles weighing on their arms, smiles already in place. Esme would open the door to them, dressed in an uncharacteristically short dress, beckon them in, yell at Carlisle to hurry with the mulled wine. There would be food and drinks and kissing and embracing.

This year would be no exception, and the whole house vibrated with Esme's preparations.

Jasper felt feverish with anticipation for wholly different reasons. He could barely contain himself. His thoughts focused on Bella like she was the only thing that mattered, his body alert with the nervous frustration of not having her near him. He'd thought about her as he ran, as he ate, as he helped his mother retrieve boxes from the basement; he'd pictured Bella's round lips and her soft breasts and her sharp shoulders as he touched himself in the shower, desperate for the temporary reprieve of physical release.

She was a narrative running too fast through his head; she was a feeling taking up too much space; she was a presence demanding to be embraced. And yet, thoughts of her were sweet and light, filling him with trepidation; so different from the dark obsession, the oppressive compulsion he had known with Maria.

He had barely tasted Bella, barely even felt her. He'd only just started getting inside her head, peeking into her thoughts. He had only just now discovered how delicious it was to rattle her confidence, to surprise her into faltering from her usual composure. And all of it, the way she held herself, so self-assured and so guarded, the way she moved so strongly and gracefully, comfortable in her body, as if unaware of what effect it had on him, and the doubt that sometimes crept over her in response to his looks and his words, that made her shoulders hunch slightly, her cheeks color, embarrassed but unafraid—she was intoxicating; she was cleansing; she was the thirst and its quenching.

All these thoughts, all these feelings, increasingly jumbled up, increasingly frantic, ran through his head. He needed, above all, for things between them to reach some sort of evolution. He needed their attraction—sudden, unexpected and yet implacable in its inevitability—to find a resolution.

He didn't know where things stood between them. He had surprised himself by kissing her, and he chastized himself for pulling away.

If he was honest with himself, he had gotten scared of how intensely he had felt for her. So far, it had been easy to fool himself that she had wanted him more than he did her, but now he was not so sure anymore. The difference between them was that he knew what passion entailed, what a connection would lead to. A relationship? It seemed so unlikely, so precarious.

Christmas was upon them, and then... what? He'd go back to LA, take the bar, find another job. There would be women, eager, hungry, ambitious. Easy. Fake.

She'd start college, get drunk at parties, flirt with horny freshmen, lose her virginity to some fumbling drunk jock that would boast about it and break her heart.

He saw it all, clear as day, the way things would go. It pissed him off, this depressing, banal script.

This is how the story will evolve, and unless he staked his claim now—unless he took control, unless he was ready to get out of his fucking head and act—this, this  _ nothing _ would be all there ever would be between him and Bella.

o o o

Back on her bed, Bella took her time opening her parcel. A flyaway piece of paper popped out first, scribbled quickly in a red pen on a piece of hotel stationery.

" _ Dear Bella, _

_I miss you! Open this right away, don't wait for Christmas. And call me!_

_Love,_

_Mom"_

Her mother sounded frazzled even in writing. She missed her, too, and felt guilty that she hadn't thought of her much in the last few weeks, sending her hurried text messages instead of calling, one-liner answers to her emails.

She peered inside. Layers of delicate paper rustled on contact with her fingers. She pulled out what felt like clothing, unwrapped it gently, curious. Renee loved buying her clothes but her taste was hit-and-miss.

A gauzy, silky fabric fell in her hands. Light grey, studded with pearlescent sequins, gauzy and semitransparent. She pulled it up, holding it by its thin straps, wondering whether it was a long top or a short dress, and where on earth she was going to wear it.

Bella smiled. Renee just assumed there would be social occasions to attend in Forks; or maybe she'd been walking down some street in Phoenix or Tucson or in one of the many smaller cities Phil's job took them to, had seen the dress and fallen in love with it and at the last moment decided she couldn't really justify wearying it herself and bought it for her daughter, instead.

Whatever the reason, Bella was fascinated by it. It looked grown-up and daring and just the sort of thing she could never imagine herself buying, let alone wearing. RUnning her hands on the ethereal fabric, she wondered what she would feel like in a dress like this, whether her body would fill it, whether her confidence would shine. Whether she'd feel Jasper's equal in such a dress.

She hung it up on the back of her closet, and lay back on her bed. She put her earbuds in and turned the music up loud, too loud to hear the doorbell.

o o o

Jasper had finally called her at ten, her voicemail picking up, not even the satisfaction of a personalized message greeting him. He hadn't left a message, wondering whether she'd call back on seeing a missed call from him, and every passing minute and hour when she didn't made him angry and miserable and dejected.

By twelve, he'd had enough. He got in his car and drove to her house, with not much of a plan other than to see her, to touch her, to kiss her again, maybe.

o o o

Siobhan got up to answer the door, glad of the interruption. The words just wouldn't flow today, and it was getting quite irritating. She could normally write her column in her sleep, but a five pm deadline just days before Christmas was enough to put anyone out of their mind. And this house was just too quiet, that's what it was, what with the forest all around and that thoughtful, serious girl who seemed to radiate silence all around her. She was much like her father, she suspected: reserved and self-contained, guarding her fire fiercely, opening up only for the most loyal of love. One day she'd have to try and get under Bella's skin, she resolved, ruffle her feathers a bit, see what was hidden behind that serene, beautiful composure.

"Must be another delivery," she muttered under her breath as she walked down the hallway.

When she opened the door, though, she was confronted with a tall, handsome young man and no hint of a uniform or a van in sight.

"Well, hello there!" She said cheerfully, delighting in his stunned expression, admiring the way his deep blue eyes widened as he took her in; he was really rather hot, and Siobhan knew drama when she saw it. The day was taking an unexpected turn for the better. "May I help you?"

It took a moment for Jasper to recover from his shock. He had expected Bella to answer, but instead he was confronted with a short, plump middle-aged woman in a loud silk gown and crazy hair, smiling broadly and expectantly at him.

"I... I was looking for Bella," he stammered. "Is she home?"

"Oh, Bella!" the woman exclaimed as though she'd forgotten she lived there. "Sure, sure, come in!" She gestured for him to come in and closed the door behind him. They stood awkwardly in the small hallway, Jasper with his hands in his pockets, embarrassed and unusually shy, Siobhan scrutinizing him with an amused look. Finally, she extended her hand:

"Well if you're not going to tell me who you are!" she exclaimed pleasantly, "Siobhan McNulty. I'm Charlie's squeeze."

Jasper laughed despite himself as he took her hand. The woman was batshit crazy, but the name did ring a bell- she wasn't an intruder who had taken up residence in the Swan house.

"Jasper... Jasper Cullen. Nice to meet you."

"Oh, you're one of Esme's boys, are you? One of the twins?" Siobhan crossed her arms on her chest, leaning against the rickety entrance table.

"No, I mean, yes, Esme is my mother, but I'm not one of the twins. I'm the eldest."

"Right! The lawyer! I see."

Jasper wondered what, exactly, did she see, what she knew, and it made him feel incredibly uneasy. He should have waited for Bella to call him back before coming out here.

"Let me go tell Bella you're here. Is she expecting you?" She raised her eyebrows in an expectant fashion, looking up at him.

"No, i don't think so. I called but... yeah."

Siobhan nodded and headed up the stairs, leaving Jasper standing in the hallway, nervous and unsure.

o o o

"Bella!" Siobhan barged into her room, whispering so loudly she might have as well be shouting. Bella sat up quickly, alarmed, and yanked the earbuds out of her ears.

"What? What is it?"

"Bella, there is a boy here for you. Or, I should rather say, a young man. A  _ fine _ young man, actually, would be the appropriate way to describe him. Emphasis on the word fine, if you see what I mean." She winked, and Bella blushed.

"You mean..." Bella hesitated, unsure, afraid to say the name, in case it shouldn't be true.

"I mean Jasper. I do believe I've traumatized him slightly." She laughed, then looked at Bella again. "Now, seriously. Shall I send him up? Are you decent?"

She looked her up and down, taking in the dark blue leggings, the grey hoodie and her pale, bewildered face under unbrushed hair. Not a speck of sophistication, this girl, and dammit if she wasn't just gorgeous.

"You look perfect. You might just want to close your underwear drawer there." She pointed at the chest of drawers before heading out of the door. Bella shot up to straighten the drawers, flustered, unprepared. Her heart was beating wildly- Jasper would be here in a few seconds. She could hardly believe it.

Siobhan had left the door ajar and she could hear his footsteps on the stairs, measured and inevitable. She briefly wondered whether she should sit down, go to the window, do  _ something _ to look interesting and ready, but before she could act on this fleeting thought she found herself face to face with Jasper.

He was standing at her door, hand raised to knock, his jacket still on, his hair ruffled from the wind outside.

"Hi," he said simply, remaining outside her room as if waiting to be invited in.

"Jasper, hi." Her hands flew to her hair, brushing it away from her face. She gestured for him to come in, moving nervously around the room. She moved to close the door, then lost her nerve and thought better of it.

She leaned against the wall and looked at him. He seemed to fill the room completely with his presence. He looked taller and broader, more rugged, even more handsome than she had seen him so far. He looked slightly lost, unsure of how to move, of where to turn. His movements were slow and considerate, as if he was taking the measure of the space around him.

He smiled at her, unzipping his coat slowly.

"Mind if I..." and he gestured towards the chair, draping it along the back.

"Sure, no, sure. Ehm, sit down, I guess." She laughed nervously as he did, and walked around him to sit on her bed.

They sat in silence for a while. It was strange, having Jasper in her room. She looked at him looking around and wondered what he made of the small, cluttered room. She followed his gaze, trying to interpret what she saw as he might see it: the pile of books on her nightstand, her laptop, the few pictures and postcards pinned above her bed.

This had never really been "her" room, and it showed in the slightly anonymous decoration and in the many vestiges of her childhood that lingered on: her bed, white cast-iron, narrow and small under the sloping ceiling; the brightly-colored round rug, frayed around the edges; the picture of her parents on the desk, looking young and dated in their old-fashioned clothes, sitting together and holding a naked, scowling baby- herself.

Jasper barely noticed any of this; for all that he seemed to be able to focus on was how strongly this room smelled of her, a mix of clean, shampoo fragrance from her recent shower- her hair was still damp around her shoulders- and something warmer, earthier, something that would have probably embarrassed her had she been aware of it: her body, herself. He hadn't planned on being in her room, and the intimacy he discovered now was much more primal and sensual than he had expected. In her space, she seemed smaller, more vulnerable, somehow. Enveloped by her own scent, comfortable and soft in her home clothes, warm-looking and inviting.

He wanted to lie with her on her narrow bed, pull her close, press her into him, nest his face in the crook of her neck where he knew she'd be yielding and delicious.

She'd left the door open, though, and he was conscious they were not alone- a blessing, maybe.

"So," he started. "I called you."

"You did? I guess... I must have missed it." She laughed, embarrassed, and looked away from him. "You must think it's an excuse or…"

"Is it?" he teased her gently, enjoying the way she blushed under the weight of her self-consciousness. Bella placed her hands between her knees, hunching her shoulders, her hair falling all around her as she did. "An excuse, I mean?"

"I wish but… no. I I really did miss it. Sorry."

"So you're not avoiding me, then?"

"Of course not!" Bella sat up straight, indignant, affronted at the suggestion. "Why would I?"

"Is it okay that I'm here? I mean, I should have maybe waited for you to call me back but...I was around and I thought it might be easier to drop by." The small lie came easy to him, too easy, and he felt compelled to rectify it with a little truth. "I kind of wanted to see you."

"I'm glad you came." She smiled. "I'm just... sorry about Siobhan, you know? She's my Dad's girlfriend. I hope she wasn't too... outgoing."

Jasper laughed, leaning back into his chair, stretching his hands above his head.

"She's nice." Then, after a pause, "I thought you were alone."

"Yeah, me too. Imagine my shock when I woke up to find her here."

They smiled at each other, mention of Siobhan easing some of the tension between them.

"So... if you weren't ignoring me..."

Bella looked down at her knees again.

"I was asleep, actually. I was sick overnight, so I guess I just overslept this morning... "

"Sick? Sick how?"

"Yeah… it was nothing, though. Just a fever. I'm fine now, I promise."

Bella pulled her knees up and hugged them into her chest.

She was two feet away from him, holding her body closed to him, her eyes big and deep, surrounded by dark circles, her pallor, he saw now, betraying her lingering physical weakness.

Instinctively, he leaned forward, closing some of the distance between them, and held out a hand, placing his fingers just over her knee, finding her hand and holding it lightly.

"You sure everything is okay?" his voice was just a whisper now, mellow and soothing, and close, much closer.

She was reminded, on hearing him, of her dream, of the way he'd breathed words directly onto her skin. She felt herself blushing, her free hand reaching for her neck, rubbing at the place where the memory of his ghost lips lingered.

"I'm sure. I'm good. It's not… I'm not getting sick again. And it's good you came... I'm happy to see you." She smiled, crooked and shy, letting him hold the tip of her fingers, relishing this small, sweet gesture of contact. He toyed with her fingers for a moment, massaging them gently, teasing her slightly. It felt so powerful and yet not nearly enough.

He stood up, letting go of her. He walked to the window, then noticed the dress hanging on the closet's door.

"New?" he asked, fingering the price tags still attached to it.

"Yeah, my Mom sent it."

"It's nice."

"Yeah, it is."

"You can wear it to my parent's Christmas party. You are coming, aren't you?"

"Sure. Your mom has already called me several times. Apparently I'm coming over tomorrow to help her decorate the tree." Bella finally unfolded her legs, sitting back on the bed. "But i don't know about the dress."

"No... you should wear it. Really."

Jasper turned slowly, and hesitantly, as if asking permission, lowered himself at the other end of Bella's bed, turning his body so he was facing her.

They stared at each other for a while, not saying anything.

"What will you do, after Christmas?" Bella finally asked.

They'd never really talked about their futures. They were living in this suspended state, cocooned, until now, by their relative solitude and the absence of all pressure, of all expectations.

Jasper sighed. Trust it to be Bella to bring it up. She was brave, braver than him, for sure: confronting the elephant in the room, tackling it head-on.

"Take the bar, for a start. Then... look for a job, I guess," he answered, and he sounded weary, blasé even to his own ears.

"I thought you were fed up with law. That it wasn't what you wanted."

"No, well. I like the law. It was just... what I was doing seemed pointless. Private practice… I don't think that's for me, really. But it would be stupid not to take the bar now… I'm almost there." He paused for a while. "I've been thinking about the DA's office. Or Public Defence. Less money, more integrity, perhaps."

"If you do that, you'd be one of those lawyers that defend prisoners on Death Row?" Bella asked, looking at him intently.

"Well, not quite," he answered, but as he said the words he realized that he didn't want to rule that out. He hadn't thought of it specifically before, but right now it sounded like something that would be worth doing. Hard. Grueling. "I don't know. Maybe. Is that stupid?"

"Not at all. It's cool. You'd be good at it." There was a confidence in Bella's voice that made him laugh.

"How do you know that? Known many Death Row inmates in your time in Phoenix?"

"Don't tease me!" she answered, indignant, sitting up straighter. She crossed her legs and leaned forward. "I can just totally see you. You are so focused, so in control of yourself. You'd give it hundred percent, I think. You'd fight and fight until the very last moment."

"I can't believe you're saying stuff like this, Bella." Jasper shook his head, amused.

"I'm totally serious! You are just… you are intense. Persistent." She spoke with finality, and Jasper marveled at where all this was coming from.

"Right. And you know all this about me, do you?"

"I do."

At hearing those words, pronounced with such finality in her steady, low voice, Jasper was consumed with the urge to pull her close and hold her tightly, wished to absorb her certainties, to soak up her pristine confidence, her conviction that she saw him, that she knew him.

He liked seeing himself through Bella's eyes, hearing his story through her words. She made it sound like he was noble, full of hope, strong and whole.

"And what about you, psychic Bella? What's in your future? You never told me what your plans are."

"Well, I'm going to college in January."

"Yeah, you said. What are you going to study?"

Bella hesitated.

"Well, you're going to laugh at me."

"I very much doubt that. Tell me."

"Well… Education."

"You want to be a teacher?" It sounded simultaneously like a really mature career choice and at the same time quite childish—don't all little girls dream of being teachers? Half-woman, half-kid: this was Bella.

"I guess I don't have such a clear plan. I mean, yes, I'd like to teach... something. Sometime. I don't know. It was always going to be a side to my swimming, you know? The original plan was that I would concentrate on that and get a useful degree on the side. When the swimming thing fell apart, I couldn't really come up with another plan as far as academics were concerned, so..." She let the words trail. Compared to his ambitions, all the things he had already achieved, she felt immature.

"Are you excited about it, though? At least a little bit?" Jasper prodded her gently. He sensed her apprehension over the future, the discomfort of taking steps that were bigger, bolder than she felt ready for.

"I am mostly scared, to be honest. I haven't really had the time or energy to think about college. But... the last few days... I've started to feel ready to move on. Ready for the next stage of my life."

"Yeah? Why is that, you think?"

"It's… being with you. Gosh, I sound so cheesy. Sorry." She mumbled in confusion, regretting the words that had come out too quickly. She hid her face in her pillow.

"No, go on. Tell me," he encouraged her, gently but firmly.

"You… I've been on my own for so long, all summer and fall, always alone with my thoughts. But you've been around, and I've wanted to be myself again. To do things, not just think about them." She paused, out of breath. So many words, so many things revealed. "Does that make sense?"

"It does. It's been the same for me, you know. I'm really glad I found you here."

He surprised himself with the huge relief he felt, like a huge weight had been lifted off his chest, like he had made a big declaration, like he could stop hiding now.

They smiled at each other, held each other's gaze until the distance between them felt uncomfortably big. Jasper got up and then sat right next to her. Gently, slowly, he placed a hand on her cheek, running his thumb over her lips.

"You're beautiful, you know. I can't remember if I already told you." His words were low, a whisper, a secret.

Bella blushed, nodding slightly.

"You did," she breathed out. "Yesterday."

Jasper moved his hand through her hair, letting his fingers play with the ends, letting himself be drawn nearer and nearer.

"Every day I see you, you're more beautiful. I don't know how it's even possible." Gently, his lips played on her jaw, on her ear, on her cheek. He relished the small whimper that left her lips. "Sweet... and smart... and so sexy, and you don't even know it."

"Jasper..." Bella felt herself falling, falling back into her dream, and she wondered for a moment whether she was asleep again, whether her fever was back. His lips were on hers and she thought she would faint.

"Bella."

He pulled away, then kisser her again, longer this time, his lips parting against her mouth, his hands holding her head, gently but firmly. It wasn't like at the swimming pool... this felt real, intentional, purposeful. This was strong, and demanding, and soothing.

Bella's hands left her side to find his shoulders, tentatively at first, the decisive. She ran her fingers on his neck, through his hair, pulling him closer, letting him know she was not scared.

_ So this is how I die _ , she thought, as she opened her legs, willing him to get even closer.

_ So this is how it starts _ , he thought, as he felt himself gravitate towards her sweet, delicious warmth.

o o o

Downstairs, a phone rang. Siobhan's loud voice picked it up, and they could hear it clearly through the open door. They both startled, pulling away. Jasper ran a hand through his hair, conscious, all of a sudden, of the small room, of the small house, of the the other woman's presence just a few rooms away.

"I guess I should get going."

His eyes were wide, his breath heavy.

Bella nodded, incapable of speaking.

"You know I don't want to, right?"

She nodded again, her hand still on his shoulder, gripping his t-shirt.

"You'll be over tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yeah." It was nothing more than a croak, all she could manage, not trusting her voice, her words, her brain.

Jasper stood up, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair. Bella was still sitting on her bed, willing her wild heart to stop its stampede. She looked up at him as he stopped near her.

"Bella... look at me. Come on." he placed a finger under her chin and lifted it gently towards him. When he had her eyes, large, brown, trusting and confused, he leaned down and kissed her again, sweetly this time, a gentle farewell. "I'll see you tomorrow."

o o o

She leaned back on her pillow, he heart beating in sync with the heavy steps on the stairs. She closed her eyes and placed her hands on her chest, relishing the violent delight that pulsed like electric light in every single cell of her body.

  
  



	16. Chapter 16

Bella rang the doorbell and waited. After a few minutes she rang again, more insistently this time. Esme finally appeared and opened the door abruptly.

"Hello, dear! Come on in! Let me take your coat! How have you been? I heard you were unwell! But you're better now, yes? Well, you look lovely at any rate."

Esme spoke fast, fussing over Bella in an exaggerated, nervous fashion. Bella had never seen her so agitated.

"I'm fine, thanks. Are you… is everything okay?"

"Oh, it's crazy here. Crazy, I tell you." Esme answered distractedly while walking out of the room and into the kitchen. "Seth and Edward will be here in a couple of hours. We've got thirty people coming over tomorrow evening, and Carlisle has decided today was the perfect day to be on call. And of course, he got called, and I needed stuff done and… well, see for yourself. It's such a mess. Sorry about this, really."

Bella followed her into the kitchen, trying to keep up with her. To her eyes, everything seemed perfectly fine: The house was beautiful and tidy, the smell of pine and cinnamon wrapping everything in festive cheer. It was unsettling, this frazzled, frantic Esme who had barely met her eye, who hadn't hugged her as usual, who had seemed to be trying to escape her even as she was standing right here in front of her.

It was strange, a little hurtful, even as she told herself it probably wasn't intentional, nothing to do with her. She wondered whether Esme somehow knew about her and Jasper, whether that was what made her keep her distance, whether she was angry about it. They'd done nothing bad—a sentence that she had kept replaying in her mind since the previous day, since being confronted with Siobhan's inquisitive stares and her not so subtle questions.

As if reading her thoughts, Esme finally stilled and sighed deeply. She stopped her jerky movements, closing the last kitchen cabinet she'd opened in her desperate search for something that had eluded her, and turned around to face her.

"I'm sorry, darling. I don't know what's come over me today. Come, let's sit down and have some coffee."

She smiled her usual warm smile, and Bella smiled back, relieved.

Esme pulled out two mugs from the dishwasher and set them on the table while she switched the coffee-machine on. Bella took one without looking. Her heart jammed in her chest when she realized what it was: a kid's artifact, all splashes of color and weirdly angled lines, and at the bottom, written in neat black script, was the name she couldn't stop whispering in her mind, in her dreams, on the phone for hours the previous night.

"Jasper made that when he was seven or eight. It was a birthday present for me, I think."

Esme's voice had stilled, softer now, its usual steady and soothing timbre returning. Bella looked up to find her staring at her intently, her eyes slightly narrowed as she seemed to be apprehending her, as if for the first time.

"He used to be such an affectionate boy, you know. We lost him, for a while." She paused, turning her head slightly to gaze outside the window. "I don't know how. He suffered, I think, although he won't say."

Silence lingered at the table for a while. Bella listened to the loud kitchen clock ticking by, second after second, wondering what Esme knew, what she suspected, what she was about to say.

"Sometimes I forget you're not kids anymore." She smiled. "And that you make your own choices and your own mistakes… and you find what is right for you."

Bella felt her gaze coming over her and raised her eyes to meet the older woman's. She breathed deeply, willing herself not to blush, not to change, but all along she wondered… did Esme know? Had Jasper told her? And was she the mistake or the right thing? She didn't dare speak, not yet. Esme held her gaze, and while it was not unkind, there was an intensity there that put Bella on edge.

Esme shook her head suddenly, raising her shoulders a little as if overcome by sudden shivering.

"Oh God! I don't even know what's come over me! I think I'm getting all emo, as Seth would say! Come, let's get to work on the tree. The boys will be here in a couple of hours."

o o o

Jasper parked the car on the waterfront and stepped out, zipping his coat up against the wind. He'd run all the errands his mother had asked of him, picked up the wine, ticked every item off the grocery list, including some obscure cereal that was apparently Edward's favorite and could only be found in a specialized shop in Port Angeles.

He hadn't planned on this trip and had resented his mother at first for asking him to go, feeling as though she'd cheated him of a chance to see Bella. But as he drove, he had realized this gave him the perfect opportunity to buy her a gift.

A gift. Just one week ago the idea of buying Bella a Christmas gift would have been unthinkable. He'd worked so hard to convince himself she had no part in his life, that he had no part in hers, and now here he was, planning on giving her something of his, a token of his permanence.

He was done fighting—he'd surrendered.

On the surface almost nothing had changed in the last twenty-four hours: another kiss, their bodies touching, a few hesitant words whispered to each other, small lies and even smaller truths.

But he knew.

He had known as he'd walked down Bella's stairs and out of her house, as he'd driven himself home, stopping halfway so he could text her— _ I bet you're more beautiful already.  _ He had no idea where they had all come from, these sweet, seductive words, and he marveled at the fact that he'd written them, sent them to her, had felt a knot tighten in his stomach as he imagined her reading.

He'd know as he had felt his phone vibrate with her response—  _ I don't know what to say… _ —and as he'd called her back, sitting outside on the freezing porch.

"Say you know," he'd urged her. "Say you know you're beautiful."

"Jasper…" she'd breathed on the other side of the line, and her low, sultry voice, sexy without even trying, begging for what she didn't even know, had made his heart soften and his dick harden.

"Bella… talk to me. Tell me."

"It's you," she'd said, finally. "It's you. You make me beautiful."

He'd known as he'd called her later that night, delighting in the image of her lying in her white cast iron bed, her head on the pillow he'd breathed in.

"Tell me about Europe," she'd asked, and he'd told her about Greece, about the white-hot sun and the constant noise of cicadas; about the warm, still sea; the star-studded sky, so low and huge above his head; about the worst hangovers of his life.

He'd made her laugh, surprising himself with how much light there was inside him, how many nice memories, how easy it was, even, to make fun of his ex co-workers, to exorcise the bitterness and frustration this way. He told her stories, late into the night, of things and people he'd long forgotten, of dreams he didn't even know he had, and he realized he was not trying to impress her; he was not trying to seduce her; he just wanted to hear her laugh, to entertain her, to hear her say his name.

He had known as she had told him of her loneliness, of how it had grown, year after year, stroke after stroke, until it felt inevitable and oppressive; as she had whispered the lyrics of her favorite songs, beating drums and fading lights; as she had breathed good night into the phone, sounding distant and haunted, bewitching.

He knew that he was falling, and it was okay. It was a sweet, sweet fall.

o o o

Port Angeles was depressing, he decided. He hadn't been downtown in several years, and while some effort had gone into revitalizing the area, and despite the Christmas decorations that adorned most storefronts, it was eerily quiet, almost abandoned.

Most shops were aimed at summer tourists, displaying a combination of tribal artifacts and generic souvenirs. He pushed a few doors and wandered into a few establishments, seeking inspiration.

What do you buy a girl you know almost nothing about, besides the fact that you want to lock her in your room, take all her clothes off, and kiss every single inch of her body?

Something warm, he decided, since she seemed to always be so cold in Forks and so ill-equipped to deal with the weather.  _ A hunting hat with furry ears _ , he'd joked that day at the diner, and she'd smiled, amused. It would be a nice, functional present; she'd look goofy and cute in it.

But as he thought this through, a stack of neatly folded scarves caught his eye. They were soft and thin, threaded with metallic filigree that caught the light beautifully. He pictured her wrapped in the luxuriant, feminine fabric, her skin glowing with the shimmering garment.

"They're from India," the shop assistant said to him. "Cashmere and silk."

He picked a light grey one with an embroidered pattern, and he was surprised at how little it weighed, at how small the neatly wrapped package was. He placed it carefully in his back pocket.

o o o

The strange atmosphere that had greeted Bella on arriving at the Cullens earlier that day seemed to have dissipated somewhat. Esme had calmed down and was now fully focused on the task of decorating the Christmas tree in a methodical and organized fashion.

"When the kids were smaller, we'd do this all together, you know. Our tree ended up looking pretty asymmetrical, and we had nothing even resembling a color scheme, but it was great fun. Eventually, the boys lost interest, I guess." She sighed. "It's nice to have you here to help me."

Bella smiled.

"I'm not very good at this," she said, almost apologetically. "My Mom isn't big on Christmas. We didn't even have a tree until she married Phil." She didn't mention that Renee had found it futile to recreate an alpine wonderland in the middle of the desert, an argument she now had some sympathy with. "Even now she lets the housekeeper do it."

Soon, however, Bella became absorbed with tying neat bows on the branches, hanging little bells, threading ribbons around candycanes. Esme observed her, trying to figure out how she felt about what she'd learned less than twenty-four hours ago.

She'd called Siobhan in the afternoon to say hello—the two women were friendly, even though they only saw each other sporadically—and to invite her officially to her Christmas party.

"Oh Esme! So nice to talk to you!"

Siobhan had been her usual ebullient self and had barely paused before announcing, in a slightly lowered tone, "I just met your son!"

"My son?" Esme had stammered, unsure of what she meant.

"Yes, Jasper! He just came by to visit Bella. In fact, he's here now."

"Oh." It hadn't been so much a surprise as a real shock. "Oh, of course. Yes."

The conversation had gone on as expected; the invitation had been made; Siobhan had been animated and funny and warm as usual, yet when it was over Esme had found herself sitting down in her kitchen, the phone in her hands, her mind going a mile a minute.

She'd known that Jasper had spent some time with Bella—they had bumped into each other at the store, he'd said. And, true, there were the times he'd left the house for a few hours at a time without much explanation, but she and Carlisle had assumed it was to visit old friends, old girlfriends, perhaps. They hadn't asked, and he hadn't volunteered.

Somehow, naively, she had never even considered that he might be going to see Bella.

What was going on? Was  _ something _ going on? Bella was a  _ kid _ , for crying out loud. What was he thinking! And… and if she was honest, she couldn't be entirely sure that her son was a  _ good influence _ , that he knew how to treat someone as special and precious as Bella. What she knew, and what she suspected, of his sentimental life had led her to fear that he was cold, detached, perhaps not entirely  _ nice _ to the girls he had dated. She remembered the way he'd summarily dismissed that cute, clueless girl during their Oregon trip a few years ago; and before her, that intense Clearwater girl who had kept calling the house for weeks while he instructed everyone to say that he was out.

And whatever had happened in California, Esme had no doubt that it had involved a woman. Carlisle had said as much a few days after he had brought him back home.  _ There are no drugs for a broken heart _ , he'd answered when his wife had pressed him to discuss medication and therapy, whatever it took to get him back on track.

Of course, it had been a great source of pain for her to see the loneliness clinging over him, so young and yet so hardened, so brilliant and yet so isolated. She'd hoped for a long time now that something or someone could break him out of his spell, free him from his mind… his punishing, unforgiving mind.

She couldn't deny that he had looked more relaxed these last few days; that his eyes had lost the cloudy, distant look; that his jaw had relaxed, making his whole face somehow seem softer, younger; and that he seemed generally lighter, happier, more like the boy she remembered: serious and reserved but without the sombre, haunted aura that he'd brought back with him from California.

But thinking of him and Bella together, imagining that it was Bella who had been the origin of these changes… it was violently unsettling, and it took all her rationality to overcome the sheer strength of her emotional reaction.

_ Perhaps they are just friends _ , she told herself.  _ Just friends _ , even though she knew that friendship doesn't make you drive off in the middle of a snowstorm; friendship doesn't lead to lie by omission; friends don't make your dull, pained eyes come back to life.

She looked at Bella now, forcing herself to appraise her objectively, to see her with new eyes—to forget that she'd seen her grow up, that she'd disinfected her scraped knees and taken care of her when she'd gotten her first period—reminding herself that Bella was not a kid, and certainly not  _ her _ kid.

There was no denying that she'd grown into a beautiful young woman, and the muscle and bulk her illness had robbed her of had left behind a tall, slender, and graceful creature. Her face had lost all traces of chubbiness, and her features were now sharp, refined, her big brown eyes illuminating her fine skin. The way she moved, the way she spoke—economically, purposefully—lent her an air of sophistication that bore no relation to her age or experience. She looked older than her nineteen years, yet at the same time, strangely vulnerable, as if she'd always kept herself sheltered from heartache and disappointment.

If she was honest, she'd often thought that one or more of her sons would fall for her, and while she had feared the complications of such an event, she'd also allowed herself to indulge a fantasy in which Bella would one day really become part of the family.  _ They could do so much worse than Bella Swan _ , she'd thought so often. But she had Edward, or maybe Seth, in mind. She just never really considered that it could be Jasper that would end up falling for her. And as she looked at her now, her frequent smiles and a knowing, faraway look when she forgot she was not alone, it occurred to Esme that maybe Bella had fallen for Jasper already.

This worried her, but she couldn't tell if it was because it was objectively wrong—their age difference, the gap in their experience, the way they both seemed to be picking themselves up after life had knocked them down—or simply because she hadn't seen it coming and didn't know, now, how to deal with it.

o o o

Jasper found them like this, in the softly illuminated living room, Bella sitting cross-legged on the floor, handing Esme the glass baubles, one after the other. They both turned their heads when they heard him come in. Bella's face opened up in a beaming smile. She sat up straighter, as if preparing to spring up towards him. His whole body vibrated with the instinct to go to her, to lean down and kiss her, to pick up where they'd left off.

But he also saw his mother's posture becoming rigid, her knowing eyes darting quickly from him to Bella, as if anticipating their reaction; and that forced him to keep completely, utterly still, unresponsive.

_His mother knew._

He stepped back, unsure of how to handle this unexpected dynamic, choosing retreat over the risk of doing wrong by Bella, wrong by his mother, exposing too much or too little.

"Your stuff is in the kitchen," he mumbled to Esme. "I'll see you later," he added, avoiding to look at Bella. As he took the stairs two steps at a time, the feel of the wrapping paper in his pocket reminded him that he was being a coward.

o o o

Bella's heart beat loudly and painfully in her chest. Seeing a glimpse of Jasper, only for him to ignore her and to disappear right away, had hurt harder than if he had slapped her.

_ I'll see you tomorrow _ , he had said.  _ You're beautiful _ , he had written.  _ Where have you been all this time _ , and  _ I can listen to your voice for days and weeks and never tire _ , he'd whispered late into the night.

Her skin felt hot, and her hands were cold and clammy. She was painfully aware of Esme's presence, of the way she seemed to be studying her, of the strange silence in the room and in the house.

So she was grateful when Esme's phone beeped with an incoming message, and she announced, "They're only an hour away!" and she disappeared into the kitchen to pack the groceries away. "You'll stay for dinner, Bella, right? Oh, I bet the boys will be so happy to see you after all this time!"

Bella couldn't really tell why, for the very first time in her life, the idea of having dinner with the Cullens filled her with such dread.

o o o

Out of habit, she'd gone to the upstairs bathroom next to the twins' rooms, rather than the visitors' toilet on the ground floor. She was tempted to hide out in there for as long as it took for Edward and Seth to get home and then to disappear, claiming a family obligation, but she knew it was unlikely that anyone would believe her.

She had learned at a young age not to let her peace of mind depend on another person, not to let others' actions affect her feelings. It had served her well so far, had given her independence and strength, kept her steady and focused. So the sudden insecurity that came with letting herself wide open was new and unsettling. She felt it intensely, a dull pain mixed with the pleasure of nascent passion.

She scolded herself, angrily, remembered she was actually happy to see them again, that she had missed them. They were her friends, and she had every right to spend time here and enjoy their company without worrying about what their brother was thinking.

She finally opened the door, resolved to go back downstairs and be nice to Esme, be nice to the twins when they got here.

Jasper was standing right there, leaning against the banister, his arms crossed and his eyes dark in the barely illuminated landing.

"Hey," he said in a low voice, keeping completely still.

"You scared me," she said, her voice caught in her throat. Then, her disappointment still raw and new, she added in an almost-hiss, "Why are you here? Why didn't you say hi when you got home?"

In lieu of an answer or an apology, Jasper took a step forward till he was mere inches from her. So close, she could see his chest moving, could feel the sense of threat from his size towering over her and the overwhelming desire to surrender to it.

"Tell me something I don't know yet," he whispered in her ear, making her shudder and crumbling her recent resolve to not be affected by him in an instant.

She swallowed loudly and closed her eyes. She thought of challenging him, of walking away, but it was futile, and he was here.

"I told you everything," she answered, "last night, on the phone."

"I don't believe it," he teased her, greedy.

Bella searched his eyes, and found them eager, demanding. He wanted everything, and he could not, or would not, hide it.

She could give him everything. She would give him everything he wanted.

"I dreamed of you," she said in a low, steady voice. "The other night, when I was sick."

"Yeah?"

She felt him move closer to her still, their bodies brushing, and yet neither could reach out to touch the other, not daring to make the first move, energy ebbing and flowing as if there was nothing else and no one else.

"Yes. You were so close I could feel you." She opened her eyes. "Closer than you are now."

"Where… where did you feel me?" he asked now, as he finally took her hand and brought it gently to his face. He kept it pressed there, relishing its feel, its weight, its perfect fit.

Bella felt like she might explode from the intensity of the feelings that were converging in her chest. Something about Jasper, something about this moment, made her want to tell him everything: real, imagined, desired or dreamed.

"Everywhere… on my skin… in my hair… between my fingers and my legs. In my heart."

Jasper let out a sharp breath at her confession. If she had any idea of what she was doing to him, her words pouring like liquid desire through his veins, she would surely stop, because there was no way he could keep from losing all control and showing her just how badly he wanted to be between her legs.

He lowered his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. Both her hands were on his face now, her fingers brushing gently, too gently—sweet torture that made his whole body ache for more contact.

For a long moment the only sound was his ragged, loud breathing, until Bella's low voice broke the silence.

"Do you… do you think about me, too?"

He inhaled her skin as though he could somehow inhale her words, too. Her sounds, her scent, he wanted to claim all of her.

His lips ran across her jaw, softly, slowly, as if he was proving a point… that there was no hurry, nothing else, no one else. His tongue reached out to taste the skin right under her ear, before he could whisper, "You have no idea…"

"Tell me," she whimpered, weak in her desire but brave in her determination to pursue it to its source and drink from it without restraint.

"I think… about kissing you," he answered, and his lips were on hers, strong and demanding, "like this." And his tongue prized her mouth open, deep and slow, and she was steady in his arms, her hands firm on his shoulders now, his in her hair, and they kissed for the longest and shortest of time until the need to breath, to look at each other and smile, became too strong.

"I think about other things, too," he confessed, as he held her tight, as he brushed her hair from her face, "I hope that's okay."

Bella's eyes widened, and her cheeks flushed. Pleasure, sharp and painful, sparked deep in her center, her body ready and calling.

"Yes," she said as she reached up to kiss him again, "yes, everything. With you."

o o o

Seth honked as he drove up to the house, cheerful and rambunctious, announcing their arrival and demanding to be seen and greeted and welcomed. Esme came out, a huge smile plastered on her face, just as Seth was lugging a huge bag from the trunk of the car.

"Mom!" he yelled, holding it up, "a present for you! Just what you wanted, four months' worth of laundry!" And he ran up to hug her.

Behind him, Edward came up slowly up the steps, a small travel bag slung on one shoulder and his guitar on the other.

"Hey, Mom," he said with a smirk, holding back slightly.

"Oh, come on, you, come here!" Esme replied, pulling him to her without waiting for him to make up his mind. "How are you, sweetie?"

Behind her, Seth snorted, "Nothing sweet about that one, Mom."

But Edward said, finally smiling, "Fine. It's good to be home." And she was so happy her heart could burst.

"Where's Dad?" they asked, almost in unison.

"And Jasper?" Edward added.

"Dad's on his way, and Jasper is upstairs. And..." She paused, realizing she hadn't seen Bella in a while, her worry flaring up again, "Bella is here, too."

Just then, Bella appeared in the kitchen, looking slightly flushed, somehow hesitant.

"Hey guys," she said.

"Hey, Bells! Fancy seeing you here!" Seth gave her a one-armed hug that made her laugh—so awkward and yet so friendly.

"You okay?" Edward asked, his voice low, his eyes full of genuine, if unexpressed, concern. She nodded quickly and squeezed his hand.

o o o

At dinner, Esme and Carlisle's focus on the twins served to defuse some of the tension that Bella and Jasper could feel rising between and around them. They kept stealing quick glances at each other, and he'd brushed her hand once, when he'd come down to say hello, held his fingers against hers for just a fraction too long.

But everything around them was full, full of noise, of questions, of tales to be told and bonds to be tested and renewed. She'd found herself taking her usual place, a habit of almost a decade—it was like a jump back in time. Even the food was the same of so many summer dinners she remembered at this table: lasagna and chicken salad. Normally it would have felt comfortable, but tonight it was just stifling. She noticed that Jasper barely said a word throughout the evening, while around him friendly, affectionate banter flew in every direction.

"Seth, for crying out loud, you need to shave that beard," Carlisle said, his tone halfway between teasing and serious. You look like the Unabomber."

Esme was quick to jump to her son's defence.

"Nonsense! He looks like… oh my god, what's the name of that actor… Bella, you know, in the weepy movie with the old people!"

"Ryan Gosling?" Bella answered, smiling, because truth be told, Seth's scraggy facial hair looked fairly awful.

"Yes! Him!" Esme exclaimed, delighted.

"Ryan who?" said Carlisle, bemused.

"Gosling, Dad, Ryan Gosling. Look him up, all the chicks are craaaaaaazy for him."

Carlisle shook his head, turning his attention to Edward.

"I'm fairly sure your jeans are too tight. They can't be comfortable, surely."

Edward raised his eyes to the ceiling, while Seth chimed in.

"Exactly! Dad, I've been trying to tell him his nuts will shrink and that he looks like a girl."

While Esme scolded Seth, "Language!" Carlisle nodded seriously.

"Indeed. You wouldn't want to compromise your fertility," to which everyone else at the table started laughing.

o o o

Jasper felt more and more uneasy as the evening progressed. It wasn't just that Bella barely dared to look at him or that his brothers had, once again, turned the house into  _ their _ house, his parents fully in tune with their whims and energy; it was witnessing how easily it all happened and how free everyone seemed to be around Bella. They treated her as one of the family, unashamed to goof around, to tease each other, to let table manners slide.

He couldn't really stop looking at her, noticing how quiet she seemed, how fidgety. She laughed at all the jokes and asked questions and helped herself to seconds, but she gripped her napkin as if it was a weapon, and more than once he'd seen her dare to look in his direction, only to avert her eyes as soon as she found him looking back.

And all along Esme was there, intercepting every stare, her eyes puzzled and concerned whenever they met his.

He wondered how, in this suddenly crowded house, under his mother's suddenly knowing gaze, he was going to be able to spend time with Bella alone again. He desperately wanted to pick up where they'd left off earlier, get her body flush against his again, touch and taste and feel.

He knew she wanted that, too.

But she was his brothers' pal tonight, and they laid their claim, selfishly, unconsciously.

"There's a gig tonight down at the Rez," Edward said. "We should go."

"I don't know," Seth answered, "it's probably going to be one of those really boring folk revival things."

"Oh, come on, let's go. Just for a couple hours. Bella, you're coming, right?"

Bella startled, caught by surprise.

"Uh, I don't know. I'm really tired."

"Bells, you gotta come. E's going to drag my ass there anyway." Seth was already standing up. "We can catch up. It's been ages."

Bella turned to Jasper, asking him with her eyes what she didn't dare to say out loud. He shook his head imperceptibly.

o o o

Later that night, after a gig that Edward had declared "experimental," the three of them made their way back home, down to the basement where they'd spent so many summer afternoons as kids.

"Want some?" Seth extended the tightly rolled joint to Bella, smoke escaping his mouth in a thick, sweet-scented cloud.

Bella shook her head.

Edward took it instead, leaning back on the couch with his eyes closed. For several minutes, no one spoke.

"God," Edward finally said, "I thought Mom and Dad would never shut up with their questions. It's like we've been gone years, not months."

"Dude," Seth answered, his words slow, "as far as they're concerned, you may as well have moved to Mars. They're terrified you're living a seedy, rock star life. Like… doing drugs and shit." He started giggling then, flicking the now extinguished joint onto the table.

Bella couldn't help but laugh, too, despite the fact that she was not high.

"What's with the hipster look, anyway?" she asked after they'd all grown quiet again. "And seriously, how's it going? What are you doing, exactly?"

Edward didn't answer right away. He had the carefully orchestrated version he had told his parents—the one where he took classes in the morning and lived with two NYU grad students and was playing steady early-evening gigs at a Jazz Club in Brooklyn—and he briefly contemplating using that same version for his brother and his friend.

He opted for the truth, instead.

"I work the late shift in a club in Brooklyn. Ten pm to three am. Busing tables, barbacking... that sort of thing."

He paused. Seth barely moved, but Bella's eyes were huge, shocked—he looked straight at her.

"It's cool, actually. When people are drunk or high they become crazy, they give away so much—not just tips but stories, feelings, everything. You break up fights and clean up vomit, but sometimes you get to witness great stuff… heartache, love, quiet despair."

"It's like a crash course in humanity." Seth said, slurring his words slightly, almost entirely submerged by sleep.

Bella and Edward smiled at each other.

"You make everything sound so poetic, Edward."

Edward shrugged.

"I want to. I have to. Everything I see, everything I live is lyrics for my songs. I go home and write, write, write until I pass out." He turned to look at her again, straight on. "I need to suffer so much more if I want to write something really meaningful, you know? I have to fuck up." He smirked. "Just don't tell that to Dad."

Bella laughed. She wanted to ask him so many things. He still looked so young, so familiar. And yet he had always seen the deeper meaning in everything; he had always been different from others. Now, it seemed to her, he was forcing himself to change, to become who he really wanted by the sheer force of his will.

Suddenly, she wanted to ask him for advice. She wondered whether he would understand, whether he knew what she was feeling, whether he could explain it to her.

"E…," she began, "have you ever been in love?" The words resonated in the empty, still room.

At first, she thought he may have fallen asleep.

"I don't know," he finally answered, "I thought so, at one point, but… I don't know."

Silence wrapped these words in its suffocating hold.

"Which probably means no," he laughed then, bitterly. "You?"

_ He is my friend _ , Bella had to remind herself.  _ My almost-brother _ .

_He finds the poetry in everything._

She didn't answer. Instead, she described, struggling to find the words.

"It's like… this fire. Like… it's real, it's physical. It's…" She stopped, embarrassed. "I sound stupid."

"Go on," he said quietly. He wasn't looking at her anymore, and Bella noticed his fingers were dancing, as if he was already putting her words to music.

_Everything I see, everything I live is lyrics for my songs._

"I want nothing else. I only want him. I see myself differently. I… I'm not myself anymore, and yet I have never been more myself. It's as if… all my life was leading up to this… this thing, which maybe is love. Or maybe… I'm crazy."

"Are you scared?"

"The crazy thing is… no. This… this feels so right."

Edward nodded.

"Don't make this into a song," she teased him, suddenly shy at having revealed so much. "Is it weird that I told you?"

"Nah," Edward reassured her. "That was beautiful. You should hear the stuff that some people tell me. Fuck, you should hear the stuff my brother tells me!"

Bella's heart suddenly leaped in her chest—she was sure, for one long, interminable moment, that he meant Jasper. But Edward was pointing at his twin, who was by now snoring softly, face down on the couch.

Silence descended once more, and Bella felt the pull of sleep coming onto her as well.

"You gonna sleep over?" Edward asked, yawning, and at a different time it would have been just fine, and she would have gladly slept in the den, like they'd done sometimes as kids.

But they were not kids anymore. Their friendship was different, a long, strong silk thread that kept them connected as they each made their way into the world, no longer a net that kept them close to one another, separate from everyone else.

She loved them, she always would—but she was in love now, and that fire, that passion, that desire that demanded to be heeded and surrendered to was all that mattered.

Jasper was all that mattered. He was her  _ now _ , her imperative.   


"It's okay, I'll drive home."

  
  



	17. Chapter 17

_Don't push me out,_

_Just a little longer_

_Stall your mother,_

_Disregard your father's words._

_Close the laundry door,_

_Tiptoe across the floor_

_Keep your clothes on,_

_I got all that I can take_

_Teach me how to use_

_The love that people say you made_

_Stop your parents' car_

_I just saw a shooting star_

_We can wish upon it_

_But we wont share the wish we made_

_But I cant keep no secrets,_

_I wish that you would always stay_

_Last night I dreamt the whole night long_

_I woke with a head full of songs_

_I spent the whole day_

_I wrote 'em down, but its a shame_

_Tonight I'll burn the lyrics,_

_'Cause every chorus was your name_

_Break this tired old routine_

_And this time don't make me leave_

_I am a breathing time machine,_

_I'll take you all for a ride_

_The Avett Brothers, Laundry Room_

o o o

Had he gone too far? The thought plagued Jasper all through the night and into the grey morning.

He had lost his mind, momentarily but completely. Had lost himself in lust and desire and Bella. She had let him. She had welcomed him. She had encouraged him and he had talked to her and touched her and shown her just how badly he wanted her.

Would things have progressed, had his brothers not come home and interrupted them? Would he have taken her upstairs and shown her just what "everything" meant if his mother hadn't been hovering, if his father hadn't been expected any time? Would he have regretted it later?

It would have been okay, he thought afterwards, it would have been natural and unforced; he had wanted it, all of it, and he wanted it still, and she had wanted him, wanted things she could not name. She had vibrated and hummed with life and trust, had held on to his skin and hair so tight, so strong. She had commanded him to her.

Bella might be young, inexperienced in matters of the heart and of the body, but she was brave, fearless. How sweet she would be, how magnificent. He had to chase away the pictures running through his head- her body, which he'd seen, her skin, which he'd tasted, her scent, which he was obsessed with... all of it for him.

_ A man could lose his mind _ , he thought. He had no doubt that she would offer everything, hold back nothing, and he would take it all and more.

She had looked hurt, disappointed, her eyes hazy and unfocused as he had pulled away, as she hastily smoothed down her clothes, as she placed her hands on her heart, to still it, to control it. She had forced herself to breathe in and out several times, had run downstairs without looking back. He had thought she was okay, that it was all fine.

But afterwards, at dinner, he saw her unease, tasted the bitter tang of secrets and deceit, saw her hide into a different person, let herself be captured and claimed by banter and old friendships.

Just like that, whatever connection they had achieved had slid away into a parallel, unmentionable reality.

And it had hurt, and filled him with regrets and what-ifs.

He remembered all too vividly what it felt like, to be the dark, unmentioned side of someone's life; he remembered how it didn't matter, in the beginning, how all that mattered was to be there, somewhere, and how the shadowed, secluded corner felt daring and exciting, and two people could fill it up completely, and it was all that mattered, all that was needed.

But he also knew how quickly that excitement turned to jealousy, how painfully the daring turned to shame, how desire could become tainted and stale in the claustrophobic recesses of a relationship known only to its main actors.

Bella and he, they had not meant to find each other, but they had; they had not meant to hide it, but they were, and he could see the razor-thin edge that lay before them, the choice between pulling Bella in his own darkness or joining her into the light.

He had let her go last night. She had looked at him, asked him to stop her with her eyes, but he'd said nothing, done nothing.

He had watched her go out into the night, follow his brothers with a tentative smile on her face; he'd heard them coming back at one a.m., and something nasty, rotten like jealousy he didn't have any right to feel had kept him awake and seething until he had finally heard her car drive away, and all along he'd wondered why he felt so trapped, incapable of action, of words, of claiming her for himself.

The wrapped-up present he'd bought for her taunted him from atop his desk, its elegant dark blue tissue paper at odds with everything else in his sparse room.

He had been so full of words for her but now he had none, and although he wanted above all to hear her voice, he had not called, not texted, just dwelled in his irrational anger and in the dull, blind ache of her absence.

_ I want to be a better man _ , he thought now, with stark clarity, as he shaved, his eyes steely in the fogged-up mirror.

_No more secrets, no more hiding, no more fear._

He remembered an old quote from a book he had read and re-read as a teenager:

" _ The future has no other reality than as present hope." _

He had never understood it, and probably didn't understand it now; but he felt his present to be just that, hope, and for the first time in the longest time, he wanted his future to be defined by it.

He picked up his phone.

_ Good morning, _ he wrote.  _ I miss you _ .

Her answer came quickly, and he smiled, wondering if she'd been expecting it, if she'd been burning like he had.

_Are you still thinking of me?_

_ I couldn't stop if I wanted,  _ he replied.

_Do you want to?_

His heart took a leap as warmth spread all over his chest, his cheeks, his lips.

_Never._

The phone remained silent for a long minute, and then...

_ I miss you too _ , came her reply.

_Tonight._

_ Ok _ ,  _ tonight _ .

The unease, the anxiety, the ugly jealousy lifted. Something like joy, tingling and exciting took its place.  _ Everything _ , she'd said.  _ Always _ , he wanted to reply, rashly, irrationally.

_ And tomorrow _ , he typed instead, the small leap into the future already daring, committing his heart in a way he had never done before.

o o o

Jasper's texts, so long in coming, so definite and open-ended, got to Bella as she surfaced from broken, too short sleep.

Fragments of the previous day's events had intruded in her dreams, distorted and at times unrecognizable. Esme's scrutinizing gaze, heavy on her conscience; Jasper's kisses, his heated words, his hands like fire on her skin; and then the twins, easily swallowing her back in their pattern of companionship, honed over so many years, but now brutal in its familiarity; and finally Edward, the way he'd listened to her, accepted her confession, making sense of it all without actually knowing what she was telling him.

Pieces of a jigsaw that didn't quite fit and left her confused and frazzled, unsure of how to feel, of what to think, of who she was.

But just when doubt and weariness threatened to settle over her like fine layer of dust, clogging her hope, slowing the beating of her heart, dulling the spark she'd felt growing inside her for weeks now, her phone had beeped, pulling her back to life, back to smiling and hoping and wishing.

Her fingers had typed, nimble, without hesitation, demanding reassurance, exposing her want. His words had come freely, soothing and arousing at the same time.

_ Tonight _ , he'd said.  _ Tomorrow _ , he'd added.

A promise. A long day ahead of her and then, at the end of it... Jasper.

o o o

Siobhan was full of plans, of last minute errands, of enthusiasm that wouldn't be dulled. It wasn't lost on Bella that Charlie had chosen, or perhaps had been chosen by, the polar opposite of Renee, and while she understood it, on a rational level, and somehow welcomed her loud, gregarious presence, she wondered if it had been has hard for him to get used to her as she was finding it right now.

All day, as she traipsed behind Siobhan in the overcrowded mall; as she picked a few generic presents absent-mindedly- gift cards, gloves, miniature bottles of flavored olive oil- she felt like as if in a trance: suspended, waiting, strangely detached from reality.

She wondered, briefly, whether she should get anything for Jasper, but nothing in the over-lit noisy stores spoke of him, of his quiet, guarded nature, nothing made justice to the way she felt about him.

_ Tonight _ .

o o o

She looked at herself in the mirror, almost embarrassed at how short the dress was, how thin its straps. She shivered, uneasy about the skin on display, about the way the fabric shifted around her hips, how the sequins caught the light and reflected it back on her pale cleavage. It was supposed to make her feel confident, desirable, but she doubted she could step outside her room, let alone her house, like this.

She ran a hand down her front, her breath catching as she remembered how Jasper had fingered the same fabric, how he'd urged her to wear it to the party. She could not change out of it even if she wanted to.

Instead, she opted for thick leggings and a long, warm cardigan, figuring she'd feel more comfortable, not as exposed, insecurity clawing at her.

A soft knock on the door distracted her.

"Come in," she called.

Siobhan walked in, her large body wrapped in a beautiful purple silk gown, a heavy necklace gathering attention to her beautifully made up face. She was all light and warmth, a smile never far from her eyes and her lips.

_ No wonder Charlie loved her _ , thought Bella, and she was grateful for her presence, calming and invigorating all at once.

"I wanted to see how you were getting on," she said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, "I hope I'm not disturbing you."

"No, not at all. We're not late, are we?"

Siobhan shook her head and closed the distance to where Bella was standing, placing herself behind her, so they both faced the mirror.

"You look so pretty," the older woman said with a smile, running her hand through Bella's hair, "I like the grunge-chic look."

"Yeah? I don't look ridiculous?"

"Bella... you look lovely." She was gentle and caring, her eyes honest, transparent. "Would you like me to help you with your make-up? Just a little."

Bella nodded, and it wasn't long before Siobhan was working away, chatting animatedly as she went.

"I've always dreamed of having coloring like yours... big brown eyes, dark hair, nice skin that doesn't go all red the minute I laugh or drink or think about something naughty." She took a step back, assessing her work. "Which, of course, is often. Curse of the Irish!"

Bella laughed and turned back towards the mirror; she paused, taking in her smokey eyes, the hint of shimmery powder around them, her dark hair framing her face. She was stunned, surprised and proud of the way she looked, still herself, but with an edge of something elusive and unsettling.

She looked like the kind of girl Jasper would want to kiss.

o o o

The party was in full swing when they got there: Bella recognized the familiar faces of many of Charlie's colleagues and their families. She scanned the room, looking for something, someone, but finding only a wall of people and noise.

She felt faint in the overheated room, claustrophobic with the crowded space, dizzy and overwhelmed. All of a sudden the day's exhaustion, the late night, the nervous anticipation crashed over her, and she thought she might faint if she stayed here.

She ducked into the kitchen, relieved at finding it empty. She walked to the fridge and pulled it open, only to feel the cool air on her face. She closed her eyes against the bright light, pushed her head further in, towards the beer cans and the salmon hors d'oeuvres on a platter which Esme had probably forgotten to serve.

The appliance's gentle hum muffled all other sounds, masking the noise of steps approaching, so she startled when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She turned around and slammed the door shut.

"Sorry," Jasper said, smiling, "I didn't mean to scare you."

Bella smiled back, her heart still beating fast from her brief fright, and now from his proximity.

"It's okay. I was hiding."

"In the fridge?"

She leaned back against it, feeling slightly silly. Jasper stood in front of her. She had to crane her neck to look him in the eyes.

"Yeah. It was getting a bit too hot in there."

Jasper shrugged, still smiling.

"I guess."

He paused for a while, then leaned his shoulder against the fridge, bending down a bit so his head was almost level with hers.

"You look beautiful tonight."

"Yeah?," she blushed, looking down. She fingered the hem of her sweater, picking at a loose thread.

"That dress looks great on you… and you did something with your eyes... I like it."

It was awkward, paying her these small compliments, and he felt a bit foolish, as if he wasn't quite sure of how it was done.

As the words left his mouth, he realized he didn't think he'd ever done it before, this flirting, complimenting game: not with his girlfriends, whom he had studiously ignored as they begged for tokens of his appreciation; and certainly not with Maria, whose beauty was so knowing and deliberate that she took it for granted, and scorned him whenever he commented on it.

Bella's clumsy, unsure reaction mirrored his own: and he realized she probably was just as unaccustomed to receiving compliments as he was to giving them.

"Thank you."

He bent down further, his hand coming to her neck, under her hair, to her warm, clammy skin.

She stayed strangely rigid, not melting into him as she had done every time he'd touched her.

"Too many people around?" he whispered.

Bella nodded imperceptibly, and, so close, he saw the shadows under her eyes, the paleness under the shimmery powder, he noticed how heavily she was leaning against the fridge, how her arms seemed anchored down by gravity.

"You're tired," he stated, matter of fact.

She did not answer. How many times would she have to admit her weakness to him? He seemed to be the only one who saw it, this vulnerability of hers, this dimmed energy that dogged her. She was slightly unnerved at just how easy it was for him to read her moods, her physical and emotional needs—when had this started? How had it happened? Even her father had not noticed how exhausted she was, how hard it was to stand around and mingle.

"You want to go lie down for a bit?" His voice was steady, cool. He was not worried, he was not patronizing, not judging.

She nodded, smiling.

"How do you know?"

"I just do," he shrugged.

He had seen the signs of her unease, had read her tiredness in the now familiar curve of her lips, in the darkening of her eyes. He had felt it, and he couldn't really explain how.

He motioned to the door and started walking, parting the crowd with nods and whispered  _ excuse mes _ , and she followed in his trail, out of the overheated kitchen, through the living room throbbing with people and chatter. She kept her head down, hoping, despite herself, not to be noticed, not to find Edward or Seth's eyes, Esme's all-knowing stare, or Charlie's wide, surprised expression.

He went up the stairs, barely turning, barely pausing for her, until they reached the landing where only yesterday they had stood and kissed, whispering heated words on hungry skin. He stopped then, turned around and waited for her. His hand found hers and she felt her heart jump in her chest at the sudden contact—soft and strong, deliberate, possessive. She looked up to him and he smiled that languid, secret smile of his that barely touched his lips but illuminated his eyes.

She had expected he would show her to the guest room and was startled when he didn't stop, but pulled her upstairs instead, twenty more steps until the attic. She looked at him, puzzled.

"This is my room," he said as he pushed the door open. "It's quieter up here, you won't hear the party," he explained, but the rational, functional explanation did nothing to appease her fear and excitement.

She looked around. The attic room was large, with slanted ceilings and assorted, jumbled up furniture. It looked inhabited without really being lived in.

His bed was a mattress on the floor, neatly made—his desk, under the skylight window, was covered with books and yellow notepads, his laptop still open, its screensaver flashing green in the dark room.

It was a temporary room and Bella was startled by the realization that it would take less than an hour for him to pack everything up and leave. This thought made her inexplicably sad, as if she was part of this accidental hiatus in his existence, something he would leave behind like the rest of these assorted objects. Standing in the middle of the room, she felt self-conscious, exposed.

Jasper closed the door behind him and, true to his word, the noise of the party became barely more than a hum in the distance.

He walked towards her, took her hand again and pulled her towards the mattress.

"Luxurious, right?," he smirked as he kneeled down, forcing her to follow suit and sit down next to him.

She avoided his eyes, at a loss as to how she should behave, how he wanted her to behave. They were on a bed, in his room, so close their knees were touching, and they had said things to each other, they had held each other, and now, she thought, there was a strange formality, something like a distance, and she couldn't quite figure out where it was coming from.

"Relax," his soft voice crooned as he lay down and pulled her next to him. When her head hit the pillow she stared at the ceiling for a long moment. Everything smelled like him, overwhelming, almost intoxicating.

Jasper lifted himself onto an elbow and started stroking her hair, gently and rhythmically. She instinctively leaned into him and turned her body to face him.

"Better?" he asked in a low whisper.

She nodded, smiling. Jasper's fingers came to trail lightly on her lips, leaving them tingly and warm. She parted them, welcoming him in, but just as she did they were gone.

Her eyes were half-closed already, tiredness pulling her under despite her desperate desire to stay awake.

"You stayed up late talking to my brothers." His tone was neutral, his words careful, but she heard something in it, a stiffness, a hard undercurrent, that made her open her eyes and look straight into his. "No wonder you're so tired."

"Does it bother you?"

His hands were back in her hair, his face so close that she could feel his breath on her lips.

"That you talk to my brothers? No… I don't think so. That they take priority… Maybe."

"They don't… it's different, you know?"

Jasper didn't say anything, waiting for her to go on.

"Seth and Edward are my friends… I can't not be with them… I can't not care about them."

He twisted a curl around his finger, looking at it intently, saying nothing.

"They're like… my brothers, you know, and it's been such a long time."

"Is that how you see me, too? Like a brother?"

She could tell he was trying to keep his tone light and mocking, an obvious joke, but it didn't quite work. A strange emotion—jealousy?— colored his expression and his words.

"How can you ask this? You know it's not… it's nothing like that." She swallowed hard, looking at him so intently, searching his eyes. "Unless you want to be?"

Jasper pulled her flush against him, until she was entirely in his arms, her face buried in the crook of his shoulder. She let herself mold into him, feel the strong lines of his body, fall in the darkness of his sudden and fierce embrace. Her heart beat a wild drumming rhythm, and she felt so full of emotion then she thought she might burst into tears.

"No, Bella… not your brother."

"What then?" Her voice came out small and shaking, muffled by his sweater. "What do you want from me?"

"More… so much more…"

She felt his lips on her head and his arms tightening their hold even more. This time, she pushed him back, fighting to free herself so she could look at him, his eyes dark and intense, longing so fierce it took all her strength not to look away.

"Everything."

It was she who kissed him then, taking the initiative for the first time, softly, hesitantly: lips on lips, barely brushing.

He kissed her back, harder but with infinite tenderness, holding back, his fingers seemingly incapable of moving away from her face and her hair, caressing, exploring, soothing.

The hunger, the desire, the frenzy they'd both felt come over them the previous day seemed to be diluted, suspended in this strange moment. It felt, right then, like they had all the time in the world, that  _ everything _ would come, but that other things needed to come first— comfort, and intimacy, and the capacity to look, not just at each other, but at everyone else, in a new light.

Their bodies lay so close, their hearts beating wildly against each other's chests, their hands were touching and holding onto skin, and hair, and clothing. Their lips met again and again, but in gentle exploration rather than blind hunger. Each kiss brought with it the realization that there was time for another one, and another one, and another one; these were kisses to soothe and to promise, to gently bring to rest rather frenzy.

Slowly, words and touches and kisses melted into each other and then faded away.

o o o

When Bella woke up, she was alone, covered with a fleece throw. She sat up, disoriented and confused.

Jasper was gone.

She got up and opened the door, the wall of noise from the party below hitting her like a bucket of ice-cold water. Music and laughter reached up the stairs; slowly, she made her way down, as if in a daze.

On the landing she ducked into the bathroom and was startled to see her ruffled appearance staring back at her in the mirror: her cheeks were flushed, her eyes smudged with dark makeup, her hair a mess. She tried to comb her fingers through it only to discover that Jasper had tried to braid it, clumsily, leaving it tangled and knotted.

She smiled despite herself then, remembering his kisses, his sweet words, his soft hands. She gave up trying to smooth it down.

When she re-entered the living room she felt the shock of a crowd after so much peace; of noise, after silence; of heat and a hundred scents after the cool, still air of Jasper's room.

She felt so many eyes on her, all of a sudden, and she was intensely aware of people's curiosity and expectations. She wondered if they'd noticed she had been gone, wondered whether they'd noticed Jasper had been missing for a while, too.

She saw Charlie frown and take a step towards her, only for Siobhan's arm to grip and steady him. She murmured something in his ear that made him stop, and stop he did, although his eyes didn't leave his daughter.

From somewhere behind her, Seth's voice rose above the din: "Yo, Bells!" just as she met Edward's stare straight in front of her. He frowned and shook his head, a question in his eyes, her confession from the previous night ringing out loudly in her ears.

Esme stood in the kitchen door, fixing her intently, waiting for confirmation of what had only been conjecture up to now.

Bella felt a surge of adrenaline course through her, and something like panic settling in her stomach. These were her people, her family, her friends, looking at her in concern, in sympathy. And yet all of a sudden, and probably for the first time in her life, she wanted out. She wanted to break free of their expectations, of their assumptions.

She felt different and she wanted everyone to know it. She wanted them all to know her secret.

And her secret, she now knew, was Jasper's smell that still lingered on her skin; his touch, that had left ghosted trails in her hair; and the mark of control and overwhelming abandon that he had left over her heart.

Her secret was that she wanted him, she wanted him more than she had anything ever before.

She scanned the room, desperate to find him.

_Him._

And suddenly her eyes were in his, and from across the room Bella felt a darkness descend upon her and a deep, rumbling noise fill her ears as nothing, nothing mattered but his blue, blue eyes and his body getting ever closer as he pushed through the throng of people to get to her.

o o o

Jasper had left Bella in his bed reluctantly. She had slipped into slumber like a feather softly blowing in the wind. In his arms, she'd been trusting and defenceless, her lips still parted from where he'd just kissed them.

Overwhelmed by her fragility, by how easy it would be to claim her as she lay unconscious in his bed, he had pulled away. Wary of gossip, of people noticing their joint absence, he had made his way back downstairs, rejoined the party, ignored his mother's loaded looks and Siobhan's amused smiles.

But for the whole time she was gone he felt her absence like a heavy load in his heart, a tremor in his limbs, a thirst deep in the back of his throat.

He knew she was back the moment she stepped back in the room, disoriented, ruffled, more beautiful than ever. He saw her scanning the room, appraising her surroundings, looking, looking, and he knew.

_He knew._

Four steps was all it took for him to reach her, to catch her before the swaying in her shoulders and the fire in her eyes took over and consumed her.

Four steps and he touched her, grabbed her hand and held it tight, fingers entwined fiercely for all to see.

_I got you._

Not enough, not close enough, and he pulled her against his chest, his lips in her hair, her breath warming his chest through the layers of clothing.

"I got you… Bella." He whispered and held her tight, and she hid her face in him, and her arms went around his waist and his was in her hair, again.

"Your hair is a mess," and people around them were stunned silent for a long moment, until loud whispering started filling the air.

"Yeah," and she looked up, smiling, "thanks for that."

Her smile, so public and transparent brought light back to the faces of everyone in the room, their unknowing audience, fueled by alcohol and festive cheer, so that when he smiled back, and leaned down to kiss her, openly, proudly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, there were cheers, and glasses clinking, and "Merry Christmas!" shouted loudly in celebration.

o o o

When they turned around, Bella secure in Jasper's arms, no secrets, no deception— _ his girl _ —they found Seth's stunned face nearby:

"Fucking A, seriously," and he laughed, punching Jasper's shoulder.

Behind him, Edward's knowing smirk, a bit hard around the edges, told Bella that he knew what her words had been about. His eyes meet Bella's for a second and Jasper's not at all, but his words, when they came, were soft: "I'm happy for you."

Carlisle laughed, hugging Esme, and then shook his head, because, really, who could have seen it coming, and,  _ come on, it'll be all right, and aren't they beautiful, _ and Esme nodded that  _ yes, yes they were _ , and she willed her head to stop being afraid and her heart to rejoice.

Siobhan kissed a fretful Charlie full on the lips, silencing his mounting panic with her silvery laugh: "What are you going to do? She's a woman, have you seen her? Let her be. She looks so lovely."

o o o

He didn't leave her side all night, didn't let go of her hand all night after that. At midnight, everyone toasted Merry Christmas. Esme came by, her eyes full of emotion, and she hugged her son, before pulling Bella in her arms.

Champagne made her bold, uninhibited.

"If it didn't make it sound like an old mother hen I would have to give you both some kind of speech about… stuff," she said, her cheeks flushed, "but, the only thing I will say, is that I love you both, so… so… well, just, be nice to each other." She downed the last dregs of her glass before beating a hasty retreat.

o o o

There would be time, Bella thought, for all of them, for their questions, if they had any, for their warnings.

There would be time for negotiating new family ties, new dynamics, for asking Jasper, what exactly, was the plan.

The time was not now, however. Jasper was holding her tight, just far enough from him that he could see her, and he was smiling so freely, so openly, like she'd never see him before. He looked younger, carefree, and so handsome. There was music and around them people were dancing, and he kept trying to move along to the beat, laughing as she stumbled.

"I can't dance," she said, self-consciously, gripping his shirt to avoid falling.

"I can't either," he laughed, "one more thing we have in common."

"We have things in common?" she asked, half-seriously. "Like what?"

He pulled her closer, kissed her neck and whispered hoarsely in her ear "I'll show you later."


	18. Chapter 18

_When we first came here we were cold and we were clear_

_with no colours in our skin we were light and paper's thin_

_Say my name and every colours illuminates_

_we are shining and we will never be afraid again_

_Say my name and every colour illuminates_

_we are shining and we will never be afraid again_

o o o

Later, much later, after the last guests left, after the candles flickered and died down, Jasper took her hand.

"Come with me," he said, his face flushed with champagne and dancing.

Bella took a quick look around the room, noticing, to her amazement, that everyone had disappeared. How had she not noticed the world around them emptying out? How had they gone from being surrounded by a wall of staring, smiling faces to this—just the two of them, nothing but the two of them?

Glasses lay abandoned on every surface, plates with half-eaten cake, an opened bottle of wine standing in a little puddle of red liquid on top of the piano. She heard the dishwasher in the kitchen and the sound of a door opening and closing upstairs.

She trailed her fingers through Jasper's and looked up to him. His eyes were bright, shining with something she'd never seen before. His smile was soft but infused with a certainty that was new and thrilling. He pulled her towards him, his body moving fluidly, and even though they'd barely been apart tonight, the contact this time was different, sudden and exhilarating, purposeful and unguarded.

He led her past the dining room and the kitchen, through the small messy pantry, and into the makeshift sunroom at the back of the house. Bella hadn't been in there for years and had forgotten it even existed. It had been a favorite hiding spot the first summer she'd spent in Forks, when she and the twins thought it was the most hilarious thing ever to disappear when Esme called them to dinner.

The room, with its glass roof and windows, was still as it was then—a jumbled mess of muddy rain boots and discarded baseball bats, a daybed in a corner, and a few potted plants that had been placed in there temporarily and were, years later, thriving.

It was dark and Bella was startled for a moment. Sensing her discomfort, Jasper took her in his arms, her back to his chest, his head bent to rest on her shoulder. He rocked her gently from side to side, in tune with a rhythm only he knew.

His body behind her was so warm she felt like melting into him. Bella relaxed in his embrace and let her eyes adjust. Soon, the contours of the objects around them took shape. Jasper walked her slowly to the daybed and pulled her down with him. He lay on his back, one arm under his head; she rested her head on his chest, both of them looking at the sky through the glass ceiling.

"See?" he whispered, burying his nose in her hair as he spoke, "it's a clear night. You can see the stars from here."

She nodded and shivered.

"Are you cold?"

"A bit," she answered, folding herself deeper into his embrace.

In his arms she felt small and feminine, yet substantial. He felt her body loosen, sweetly surrendering to his unspoken command.

She turned her head slightly so she could look up at him.

"Jasper," she said.

"Bella," he answered, his lips reaching down to hers.

"What happened tonight?" she asked, her voice just a whisper. "What happens now?"

"Mhhhh?" he answered, distracted by the lingering taste of cinnamon and champagne on her mouth. "Now?" and he kissed her again, distracted, distracting.

"I mean... What… what does it mean, you know, this… this." She twisted her body slightly and gestured to the small space between them, her fingers dancing from his chest to hers, forcing him to stop his teasing kisses and look at her.

She was so serious and eager, her skin glowing in the darkness. Her eyes didn't waver; her hands didn't shake; and the way she looked at him, with trust and intensity and desire, felt like a physical ache in his chest. In Bella's questions, in her need for things to have a name, a definition, in her demand for clarity he saw the audacity of her logic and the innocence of her simplicity. There was no fear in Bella, just a need to  _ know _ . So easy for her, so clear-cut, yet so terrifying for him, to confront and define his lust, to take hers in his hands and make it blossom.

_ Careful, _ he thought. Careful with her heart, with her body. With himself.

_ Gentle, _ he chided.

_ Slow _ , he begged of himself _. _

He took hold of her hand, fingers intertwining, her palm fitting perfectly in his. He held their joint hands up, bringing them to his chest so she could feel the way his heart beat. He brushed his lips on hers, feathery light at first, then harder.

"It means whatever you want it to mean," he said with finality.

He broke the kiss so he could look at her again, so he could find confirmation in her features that she knew what he meant.

Her eyes were softer now, unfocused. "I want it to mean everything."

His mouth went to hers again, forceful now, kissing her with abandon; his tongue found her warmth, while his hands held tight and pulled close; she turned around and away from him and the loss of contact, though momentary, left him aching and wanting.

Bella straddled him, shocking him with her boldness, igniting a different sort of hunger, blind and consuming, and all thoughts of warning abandoned him. He closed his eyes, succumbing to the feeling of her on him, and when he opened them she was there, looking down, her hair falling forward, covering her face till all he could see was her mouth, parted and quivering. Then slowly, so slowly, she bent down to kiss him again

She rocked gently in his lap until every part of him reacted to her.

His body took over, desire now focused on the swell of her breasts pushing into his chest, on the softness of her pushing against his hardness. He slowly uncovered the expanse of her skin as his fingers slid her cardigan down her shoulders, trailing goose bumps on her arms. She arched her neck as he, gently at first, then feverishly, ran his tongue over it and teased it with his teeth.

He was hard, and he was wanting, and rougher than he would have liked, but she wasn't surprised and she didn't pull back.

His hands roamed her shoulders, almost translucent in the moonlight, down her chest, finally finding her breasts, small, soft, perfectly full. He paused, wondering if things were going too far, too fast.

He moved his hands over the satiny fabric of her dress, his fingers pressing over her hardened nipples. Bella stilled for only the shortest of moments before pushing her chest into his hands.

Her moan was a strangled noise suspended between pleasure and pain. It was enough to send him over the edge, and he pressed her to himself almost harshly, his kisses sloppy and aggressive.

Her short dress had ridden up and he could feel her heat through the thin layer of her leggings. He was conscious of his erection pressing into her, yet too far gone to care.

"Bella," he said, as she rocked against him.

All she offered in return was a sigh, a sound so primitive it made him shiver.

A voice called somewhere from the back of his head.

_ Stop _ , it said, but whether to himself or to Bella, he didn't know.

In spite of it, his hand traveled down until it was on her waist, then under her dress, on her skin where her leggings ended and her slender, toned waist lay in wait.

Bella's mouth, still on his, gasped at the contact. The next thing he was aware of were his fingers slipping under the soft cotton of her underwear and digging in the soft, yielding curve of her flesh. The warmth of her, so close, so maddening, called to him and he groaned at the effort it took not to dive into it.

He kissed her neck, her collarbone, her hair falling everywhere around his face, its scent like a shield that disoriented and intoxicated him.

"Bella," he whispered against her skin.

"Baby," he breathed against her neck, his voice a plea, a breathless supplication.

"Don't stop," she said. "Don't stop," and she pulled away from his kisses so she could look at him. There was fire in her eyes and on her flushed skin.

Her words spurred him on, absolving him from any lingering doubt. His hand pulled down the fabric at her waist, awkwardly, fumbling in a way that made him feel like a teenager, that made his heart beat in anticipation and impatience.

Bella lifted her hips, allowing him to slide her underwear along her legs. She reached down to pull them all the way off.

She sat on top of him, still now, her chest heaving as she watched, mesmerized, at the way Jasper took her hand and brought their joined fingers to press into her swollen, warm center.

She closed her eyes, swaying at the sensation. She released her own hand and placed it on his chest to balance herself.

Bold, crazy, entirely devoid of rational thought, he slid one finger inside her.

"Is this okay?" he asked as she tensed. He slowed his movements but didn't stop. He caressed, he teased, never breaking contact with her skin.

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes."

He nearly lost his mind at being so close to owning her, nearly forgot himself so focused he was on drawing pleasure from her, on feeling her arousal consume itself around him. All of him, all of his purpose, any remaining sense of self was concentrated in his fingers and on what they claimed from Bella.

He almost didn't notice her fumbling with his belt and zip. Her hand slid inside his boxer shorts and gripped him, strong and confident, so warm and tight, and it felt so good it was almost painful.

"Bella," he tried to say, but she held and stroked and never, never in his life had he needed to lose control so much, to lose himself in a woman. Never had it mattered so much that she should lose herself in him.

He moved his fingers faster now, searching and exacting and merciless. Finally, he felt her release and watched her shudder, her mouth open in a silent scream. Her grip on his cock slackened as she crashed under the weight of her orgasm.

He reached out to touch her face, a mix of wonder and pride and a strange, awed tenderness.

He would have let her sink and surrender, he would have been content with her beautiful pleasure. Instead, Bella opened her eyes and moved over him, guiding him out and onto her, sliding down on him, skin on skin, heat on heat.

"Bella," he managed to say, "are you sure?". It took everything he had not to just slam into her.

She smiled, her body trembling in the darkness.

"Yes," she said simply.

And then he was inside her, pushing, praying, conscious he would hurt her, yet driven to just take, take, lost in the amazing sensation of her tight, searing heat, of how good she felt around him, of how right he felt inside her. And when he pushed all the way, when he heard Bella's sharp intake of breath he was suddenly, uncontrollably ecstatic.

He stopped his movements for a moment, holding, waiting, feeling her stretch around him. He watched her, ran a hand through her hair, a thumb on her cheekbone, his hand trembling with the effort to keep this moment gentle, to infuse it with care and gratitude and meaning. Then, when he felt her relax and saw her eyes open and fix onto his, he started moving inside her, not as carefully as he should have, watching, watching her all the time, her eyes closed in concentration, taking him, having him, loving him.

She was bliss and she called to him, so near, so deep, so lost. He finally closed his eyes, gripping her hips tighter and, with a sigh, he let go.

All he felt was lightness and freedom.

"Bella," he whispered after a long moment. He kissed her again, gentle, slow, reverent, savoring her taste, the scent of her skin all over him.

She slid down on her side and, still breathing heavily, hid her face in his shoulder and kept it there.

"Are you okay?" he asked, low and tentative, suddenly terrified. "Did I hurt you?"

She shook her head, then let out a small strangled laugh.

"Thank you," he said.

Hesitantly, she raised her head. "For what?"

"I never thought I would want you like this," he confessed. "I didn't know I could have you like this."

"Like what?" she answered, her eyes big now, and he wanted to kiss her some more, kiss her serious, eager expression away.

He laughed.

"Like this," he said, his hands running over her cheeks, into her hair, "Like nothing else matters."

"I feel the same," she whispered. "Like I'm falling."

They looked at each other for a long moment, the air thick with the intensity of their stare.

_ She had no idea _ , he thought. What had happened... the freedom he had found in her. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt anything like it. Never, maybe.

_ She's perfect, _ he thought, and wondered whether he should say more.

Moments stretched, and their breathing finally evened out. Bella's hands traveled lightly on his chest and on his shoulders as she nestled into him, her legs still entwined with his. She seemed so peaceful, so confident. She wasn't scared. She had trusted him, and she trusted him still.

_ Perfect _ , he thought again.

_ Perfect for me _ , he realized, and elation washed over him like a wave.

o o o

For a while Jasper thought Bella had fallen asleep in his arms. Her breathing was quiet, her heartbeat regular. He stayed awake, savoring the peacefulness of her features, the serenity he felt inside.

"Bella," he whispered.

She hummed in response, awake, but only barely.

"I think I should take you home."

She nestled deeper into him in wordless resistance. Jasper would have liked nothing more than to keep her here with him, to bring her upstairs to his bed, to pretend nothing mattered but the two of them.

"Come on," he said instead. "Come, beautiful girl."

He held her hand as he led her through the dark house and didn't let it go until he kissed her goodnight on her doorstep.

o o o

The house was silent when Jasper woke up. His head was sore from the champagne, his body heavy from lack of sleep, but he was more relaxed than he'd felt in a long time.

Images of Bella came flooding through his mind, and for a while he indulged in them, continuing in his fantasy what they had started last night.

She hadn't wanted to go home; she would have been content to just lay with him on the daybed all night, consequences be damned. He'd had to fight himself to convince her.

He'd given her her present, wrapped the silky fabric carefully around her neck. She'd leaned her cheek in its soft texture, then looked up at him in consternation, upset that she had nothing to reciprocate with.

Did she not realize what she'd given him? He felt ashamed now for the way he'd taken it, selfishly, recklessly. He wondered whether she regretted it, whether she would one day soon resent him. He pushed the thought away, focusing on the way she'd held his hand in the car, on how she'd smiled, beaming, confident, smitten as they'd said their goodbyes.

He found his mother in the kitchen, an apron pulled on top of her pajamas, her hair up in a messy ponytail, low Christmas music filling the kitchen.

It all looked much cleaner and tidier than the previous night, the oven radiating heat and a delicious scent all over the room. Esme had clearly been up early, relentless in her celebratory planning and execution.

"Hey," he said softly to announce his presence. Esme turned around, a smile on her face.

"Hey, you. Merry Christmas, darling."

She reached up to Jasper's shoulder and placed a quick peck on his cheek.

"Merry Christmas, Mom," he said when he pulled away, a smile on his tired face. "Sorry I slept so late."

"You're the only one up. Your brothers are dead to the world, and your Dad went back to bed to sleep off his hangover. Are you hungry or shall I just make you some coffee?"

"Coffee would be great, thanks." He took a seat, waiting for his mother to pour him a cup and do the same. "I don't think I can eat yet."

Jasper wondered whether he should volunteer some information. Much as he was loathe to discuss his relationship with Bella, he was also painfully aware that sooner or later he would have to.

But it was Esme who spoke first.

"Everything okay?" she asked, a question that could mean so many things, that could warrant so many answers.

"Yeah," answered Jasper, simply. "Yeah."

There were a million things Esme wanted to say.

But as she looked at him, her handsome, eager son, his eyes sleepy but alert, none of the poisonous exhaustion that had been circling them for weeks, all she could do was smile and get up and circle the table to go to him. She held her arms out and pulled him into her.

He let himself be hugged, and waited patiently until she was ready to pull away.

Esme let him go, and patted his shoulder affectionately.

"I better go wake your brothers up," she said, turning away from him. "It is Christmas, after all. There's lunch to be had and presents to be opened. And Alka Seltzer for breakfast. No excuses."

o o o

Bella felt irrationally nervous at the thought of going downstairs. She could hear music playing in the living room and the regular rhythm of conversation punctuated by laughter.

At first, on waking up, she had thought it had all been a dream, a figment of her imagination—for how could something so perfect, so vivid, and overwhelming be real? Jasper's bed, his words, and then dancing and kissing and… making love. All this... had it really happened?

But the shiver she felt now as memories of the night before came back to her, the tightening, the soreness between her legs that took her breath away— that was real.

She touched her lips, which were still tender; her skin, which was rough from his stubble. She ran a hand down her neck, over her breasts, smiling as she remembered the way Jasper had touched her, his warm hands all over her body.

Everything had felt so easy, so natural. He'd asked if she was okay. He had been afraid to hurt her. She had wanted him, wanted it, and the pain- so fleeting, so small- the pain had felt like a victory, like a revelation.

Jasper... so handsome, so serious, so tender and intense, and he had chosen her. He had taken her.

She got out of bed, rushed to the door without bothering to put her slippers on, and made her way quickly down the stairs and into the living room.

Charlie and Siobhan were sitting on the couch, mugs in hand, her head resting on his chest. She sat up when she saw Bella, but her hand remained on Charlie's knee.

"Merry Christmas!" she and Charlie said almost in unison.

Bella sat on the edge of the stuffed armchair, burying her bare feet in the shaggy rug beneath.

"Hey guys," she said. "Sorry I slept so late."

"That's okay!" exclaimed Siobhan. "Let me get you some eggnog!"

She stood up and excused herself to the kitchen, ignoring Charlie's raised eyebrows at the mention of the spiked drink.

"Merry Christmas, Bells."

"Merry Christmas, Dad," she replied and got up to give him a quick peck on the cheek.

"So," he started, clearing his throat.

"So," she answered back, burying her hands in her clamped knees.

"You got home okay last night?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I did."

Charlie was silent for a while, looking intently at a spot on the wall in front of him.

"Am I supposed to give you a curfew now? Or… you know, have a talk about… stuff?"

"Dad!" Bella laughed, her voice rising, embarrassed.

"No talk?" He smiled, his eyes twinkling, his features finally starting to relax.

"Please, no talk!"

"Okay, okay," he answered, his hands up. "Thank God for that."

He paused again, taking a sip from his drink.

"Everything is fine, though? Right?"

"Dad… Everything's great."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Really."

Charlie was silent for a while, deep in thought.

"Isn't the Cullen kid a bit old for you?"

"He's not," she answered, defensively.

" If he wasn't Esme and Carlisle's kid… I don't know if I'd be on board with that."

"Well, he is, so…" Bella looked at her father nervously, worried to find him frowning, but she was relieved when she saw him smile, and realized he was toeing a fine line between warning her and teasing her.

"It's going to take some time for me to get used to the idea, not going to lie. But I guess… I'm just going to have to, uh?"

Bella looked at her father, her eyes big and eager.

"Yeah," was all she said. "You sort of have to."

"You like him?"

"Yes," she said simply.

"And he's a good guy? You know, it's hard to tell. He doesn't speak much and always looks so serious..."

"He's a really good guy, Dad. Really."

Charlie sighed.

"You live your life now, you know? Off to college in just a few days. Just… be sensible. I know you are, but… you know. Be smart."

o o o

It was dark by the time Jasper's car pulled outside Charlie's house. He'd called her twenty minutes earlier, letting her know he was on his way. Bella was already standing on the porch, her coat zipped up, her breath visible in the freezing night air.

"What are you doing out here, crazy girl?" Jasper said as he pulled her into his arms.

"I couldn't wait to see you," she answered, burying her cold nose in his neck, inhaling deeply to remind herself of all the things she'd missed.

"You're freezing," he said, smiling despite himself, bending his knees to be level with her and taking her face in his hands. His eyes were deep into hers, his mouth just inches from hers.

"I wanted to kiss you," she said, leaning further into him. "My Dad is in there."

She stepped up and planted a first, light kiss on his mouth. He smiled in response.

"Okay," he said, reaching down, "okay."

He leaned in closely, kissing her forehead, her nose, her cheeks.

"I thought of you all day," Bella said, her voice little more than a whisper.

"I missed you, too," he said, pulling her closer. "Now let's go in before your Dad comes out here and shoots me."

o o o

The next three days were constant, vicious rain that made it impossible to spend any time outdoors. He called Bella on the phone, their conversations a strange mix of intense and superficial. He wanted to tell her how much it had all meant, how much she meant; he wanted to tell her in detail of how different, how much better it would be next time and how many more times he would hold her and kiss her and make love to her. He wanted to apologize, to know if he had hurt her, if she regretted what happened. Above all, he wanted, he needed to see her so he could tell her all of that in person.

She had been by the house, but his brothers had been around, hovering around her with a strange mix of awkwardness and defiance. They played videogames and she sat next to him, close but not too close. She had, in Seth's words, "played like a girl", distracted and self-conscious. Jasper had stolen a kiss when they were alone, but it had been quick and unsatisfactory, barely enough to tease his need for her.

And afterwards, after he'd driven her home, after he'd nearly made himself crazy with touching and tasting her in the small confines of his car, he'd had to endure his brothers' jibes and their not-so-subtle curiosity.

"Bro," Seth had told him, "she's like a cousin or something. Pretty sure there are laws against that type of stuff in some states."

"Seth," Edward had scolded him, annoyed, "don't be a dick."

Seth had laughed, easy-going and laid back as usual, and Jasper had found himself smiling, too. But afterwards Edward had stared at him in that freakish, solemn way of his.

"If you hurt her even a little..." He hadn't finished his sentence, letting his ill-defined, clumsy threat linger in the air between them.

So when he woke up to a miraculously sunny winter day, the air frigid and dry, the sky almost unnaturally blue, Jasper called Bella.

"Let's go to First Beach. Remember? We drove there together that day."

She smiled, remembering  _ that _ day- mere weeks ago, yet a lifetime away- the day that had marked the beginning of them opening up to each other, the first, tentative step to whatever it was that they had now become.

They bundled up in their warmest clothes, woolen hats pushed low down their heads, scarves high on their faces. Their gloved fingers held tight to each other's, their eyes the only visible part of their faces.

The cold filled Bella with a strange energy and she relished the sprint she felt in her legs, the lightness in her arms, and she pushed herself to run, turning around, daring Jasper to follow her and catch her.

He let her go, let her run away from him just to enjoy the pleasure of seeing her lovely body sprint, her dark silhouette against the blue sky, her hair flowing behind her, her face turning back towards him, beckoning, him, calling him.

She slowed down, turning around towards him, her eyes sending him an unmistakable message. He ran for her then, reaching her easily, gathering her in his arms, pushing down her scarf with his teeth and laughing against her lips.

He lifted her up in his arms, then staggered and almost dropped her as he lost his footing under her weight.

"I'm too heavy!" she protested, laughing, as she held his hand to keep him from falling.

"And too short," he growled playfully in response as he bent his knees so his mouth could be level with hers.

"And you're too handsome," she said, her hands reaching up to pull his head down. "That's the problem."

"Close your eyes then," he said as his mouth crashed on hers. "Problem solved," he mumbled.

They shut up after that and laugh-kissed for a long time, holding tight to each other, unconsciously swaying to keep some warmth in their limbs.

"We're going to freeze out here," Jasper finally said. "Let's go back to the car."

Bella nodded, kissing him still, reluctant to let him go, her lips still seeking contact with his skin, his jaw, his ear. She fit so perfectly under his arm and, from a distance, they looked like one large, dark body moving slowly against the horizon.

o o o

"Jasper… I've been thinking," Bella said as she pulled away from Jasper's lap.

"Yeah," he answered, hardly breaking the pattern of his kisses on her neck, his tongue taking its time to caress and explore, his hands, entwined in her hair, pulling her to him, keeping her near him, making up for lost time. Right now all he wanted, all he needed, was to smell and taste and impress every corner of her skin with his hands.

Bella whimpered, angling her neck to give him better access, closing her eyes as he kept kissing her in a way she didn't know was possible, tender and wanting at the same time, his lips and tongue and mouth scorching hot on her skin, her body melting in his embrace until all her thoughts evaporated and she was a confused mess of wants and needs.

Jasper's mouth trailed further down, nipping at the neck of her thermal shirt, a growling sound escaping his chest.

"I hate all these layers," he said as he pulled her back on his lap.

"I hate winter," he continued as his hands found their way under her shirt, brushing every rib in turn in a determined and inevitable upward motion.

"And I'm starting to hate this car," he concluded, before his mouth found hers again and his kiss obliterated all the negativity he had just unleashed with his words.

"Really?" she asked, "You hate it all?"

He laughed.

"No, not really." He pulled away to look at her, even though his whole body was shaking with the effort of not undressing her here, in the car, by the side of the road. "Quite the opposite, in fact."

She lifted a hand and ran it on his cheek, loving the way his stubble felt rough against it, smiling when he briefly closed his eyes to lean into it.

"It's frustrating, though," she said, and he nodded, without breaking contact with her hand.

"You have no idea."

"So," she continued, "I've been thinking."

"So you said," he encouraged her now, more focused on her words. "What about?"

"About… what happens next. To us."

Jasper was silent for a long time. Not for the first time, Bella was addressing the big question head-on, fearlessly. He had been content to let himself sink in the moment, refusing to think about what came next, and this despite his determination to treat this—to treat her—like the precious thing he knew it was.

"I'm starting college in two weeks," she said, her voice lower and almost sad.

He nodded.  _ I know, I know, I know _ , he wanted to say.  _ I just don't want to think about it, not yet _ .

He lowered his eyes and started toying with the end of her sweater.

"When's your exam?" she asked.

"End of January."

"When are you going back to California? Do you know where to go? What you'll do?"

Jasper sighed.

"I don't have a lot of certainties right now, Bella." He paused. "In case you haven't noticed."

Bella was silent at that, wondering whether the edge of bitterness she could hear in his voice was a reproach. She was still, waiting for him to continue.

Jasper looked at her, so serious, so eager, so transparent. She showed him something different, a different way to be. He took her hand in his.

"But you," he continued, "you… I'd like you to be one of my certainties. If you want, that is."

He wanted to laugh, suddenly, in embarrassment at his own awkwardness and the nature of his declaration.

"Your certainty?" Bella replied. "You're asking me to be… your certainty?" Her lips curled up in a smile. Jasper's did the same.

"I guess I am. Would you like that?" Jasper's tone was playful, but his heart was beating fast, betraying his trepidation at her response.

She trailed her fingers through his hair, noticing, not for the first time, the rough softness of it, the way it filled her hands completely, how thick and strong it felt.

"What will I have to do, as your certainty?"

"Well," he answered, bringing one of her fingers to his mouth. Although he hadn't thought about it beforehand, hadn't planned to have this conversation, the answer came to him fully formed. "For a start… you could let me drive you to college. I mean, it's on my way."

"You want to drive me to college?"

Jasper nodded.

"Unless you have any other plans, that is."

Bella shook her head.

"No plans. I'd like that."

Jasper kissed her smiling lips, feeling a surge of excitement for his uncertain future, so bleak until only a few days ago and now getting brighter all the time.

"What else," Bella said, pushing him gently away, hungry for more words, for more promises, for more clarity over Jasper's intentions. "What else do I have to do?"

"You could let me visit you, sometime." He kissed her again, right at the corner of her mouth, where the smallest of dimples seemed to form whenever she spoke or laughed.

"I could do that," she answered, chasing his kiss away with one of her own, tickling his jaw with her lips and his neck with her teasing fingers.

"And maybe," he continued, "once things are settled and I have other, less important certainties figured out, such as a job and a place to live… maybe you could come visit too, sometime."

He stilled her hands, grabbing her wrists to steady her. He fixed his gaze straight into hers, a picture beginning to form in his mind—of an apartment by the ocean, of sunshine streaming through the open windows, of Bella's naked body caressed by the clean, gentle ocean breeze, her skin golden and smooth under his touch.

He wondered whether she could see this picture, too, whether she was a planner or a dreamer, whether she even thought about the future, about a future with him. He wanted, above all, to make it happen, and for the first time he had no doubt he would; and he looked forward to next week, next month, next year, because she would be there, with him.

"I could," she answered, "I will."

  
  



	19. Chapter 19

_With everything ahead of us, We left everything behind_

_But nothing that we needed, At least not at this time_

_And now the feeling that I'm feeling, Well it's feeling like my life is finally mine_

_With nothing to go back to we just continue to drive_

_Without you I was broken_

_But I'd rather be broke down with you by my side_

_I didn't know what I was looking for So I didn't know what I'd find_

_I didn't know what I was missing, I guess you've been just a little too kind_

_And if I find just what I need I'll put a little peace in my mind_

_Maybe you've been looking too Or maybe you don't even need to try_

_Without you I was broken_

_But I'd rather be broke down with you by my side_

_With everything in the past, Fading faster and faster until it was gone_

_Found out I was losing so much more than I knew all along_

_Because everything I've been working for Was only worth nickels and dimes_

_But if I had a minute for every hour that I've wasted I'd be rich in time, I'd be doing fine_

_Without you I was broken_

_But I'd rather be broke down with you by my side_

_Broken (Jack Johnson)_

o o o

He picked her up early in the morning, the sky still dark with lingering night, thick, grey clouds obscuring the pallid sunrise. He drove the short distance to her house slowly, as if wanting to stretch out the distance and the time it took to cover it.

He felt something akin to trepidation, anticipation mixed with fear. He was triumphant, strangely optimistic at the thought of leaving Forks, ready to face the world again, nervously excited at the thought of what lay ahead—sitting the bar, going to job interviews, finding a flat, starting fresh, with a light, unencumbered heart.

And yet this enthusiasm was tinged with melancholia, because here, in these forests, along these dreary, lonely streets, something magical had happened, something that had cleared his heart of debris and dead weight and brought him back to life; and he couldn't help but be scared that, away from Forks and its protective isolation, it would all dissolve, reveal itself to be just a dream.

He would pick up Bella in just a few minutes and then he would drive her away. Part of him wanted to preserve her in this moment forever, in this small house at the margins of town, protected from the world and all its temptations, kept apart, almost hidden, a secret—his secret, to which he could selfishly return whenever he needed her, whenever it all got too much. But another part, the bigger one maybe, the one that was positive and hopeful and was determined to abhor darkness- that part couldn't wait to take her out of this grey, forgotten corner of the world and let her shine, shine for him, shine for everyone to see.

He knew, deep down, that he wouldn't need to run away from the world again if she was in his world.

He parked in front of Charlie Swan's house and killed the engine. An unconscious smile lifted the corners of his lips and, with it, his spirits.

As he walked the few steps to the door, as he rang the bell, he felt his heartbeat accelerate and a flutter in his stomach—as if he was a child, as this was the first time ever he picked up a girl.

As if, he thought with stark clarity, he was about to promise her something, about to bind himself to her in ways he couldn't or wouldn't articulate.

He heard heavy footsteps and Charlie appeared at the door.

"Jasper," he said, his hesitant posture somewhat betraying his formal voice.

"Good morning Dr Swan," Jasper replied, his hand out of his pocket and waiting awkwardly in the space between the two of them. Charlie took it after a beat but did not soften his formal approach.

"Bella should be down in a second. Last minute packing." Then, after a short pause, he added, "Would you like a coffee while you wait?"

Behind him, Jasper saw Bella's two suitcases and her blue backpack waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

"No, thank you, I'm all right," he answered, polite but impatient. "I guess I'll start loading these in the car."

By the time he was done and heading back to the house, Bella had appeared at the top of the driveway, breathless and smiling, her cheeks red from the cold and the excitement. He smiled back and hurried to her, grabbing her hands in his, holding them firmly, coming close, so close to her body and her face but stopping just short of kissing her, conscious of the open door and of her father hovering just behind it.

"Ready to go?" he asked, and she nodded, her eager smile not faltering.

"Let me say goodbye to my Dad," she said, and flew back inside.

Jasper saw her hugging her father, his grip tight, his hand caressing her hair in a tender and possessive way. He murmured something he couldn't hear, endearments or warnings or a mix of both, and Bella nodded, serious, and gave him another hug before turning away.

"Drive safely," Charlie said as they walked fast towards the car. "Call me when you get there."

o o o

"Come here," he told her once they had reached the city outskirts, the car idle in the gas station parking lot. "Let me see you."

She released her seatbelt and leaned in, her brown eyes shining, her mouth soft and sweet, lips parted waiting for him, inviting him in.

He buried his hands in her hair and kissed her hard, with abandon, almost violently.

"God," he said, "you taste so good."

She laughed against his lips and kissed him back, more slowly but no less enthusiastically.

"Good morning," she said, "I missed you."

Her words, always so simple, always so true.

"Yeah?" he answered, teasingly, grabbing her hand and taking it to his face, closing his eyes against the soft, warm feeling of it. "I'm here. We're here."

They stayed like this for a while, kissing and looking at each other and whispering gentle, silly words.

"Let's go," Jasper said finally, "we have a long drive ahead of us."

o o o

Jasper drove slowly, comfortably. The road was almost deserted, the car was warm and music played softly in the background.

Next to him, Bella hummed mindlessly in tune with the radio, her head turned towards him, her hand never far from his. Once in a while he turned to her briefly and smiled.

"What?" he asked, puzzled by her amused, far away smile. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

"Nothing," she answered. "I'm just remembering."

"Remembering what?"

"When you picked us up from that festival. We were in this car. You drove me home."

"Yeah," he said. "I remember. You had really short shorts and a huge hickey on your neck."

The pang of jealousy he felt surprised him, as did the sudden, maddening desire of seeing Bella's naked legs again.

Had he already wanted her, then? He couldn't remember, only that she had surprised him, somehow, and something of her presence must have lingered on in his memory, like a seed, in anticipation of a future he knew nothing about yet.

"Oh my god," she covered her face with her hands, laughing nervously at the memory. "I can't believe you noticed! I can't believe you remember that! I spent the whole car ride trying not to die of embarrassment."

"Who was it, by the way?" he asked after a moment, hoping to sound just casually curious.

"Some guy… I can't even remember his name."

A small lie, which was meant to belittle the boy in question and ended up making her sound more experienced than she was. Bella regretted it immediately.

"My Dad gave me hell about that," she added, unnecessarily.

They were silent for a while until Bella spoke again.

"I remember you… you seemed so distant… sad." She reached for his hand over the shift stick. "You were handsome."

"Were?" he teased her, the corner of his mouth lifted in a defiant smile.

"Are," she corrected herself. "But now… you're not so sad. Not so distant. I get to touch you, now," she said, with a boldness that kept growing inside her all the time.

_ Mine _ , she thought.  _ My man _ .

Her fingers reached his cheek and stroked it gently and Jasper marveled, not for the first time, at the confidence with which she touched him, at the ease with which she made his space hers.

He had known lust; he was well acquainted with desire. But this… this soft, liquid, warm feeling that came all over him; this easy, relaxed current that made him want to reach out and grab Bella's hand, and hold it tight, and not let go; the thrill he felt, deep in his stomach, light on his skin when she moved her fingers so they'd fit more securely in his; this, he'd never known.

Everything in his life until then had been worthless, he thought, or only worthy in relation to where he was now: leaving his past behind, driving next to a girl that was young and vibrant and full of promise. He wished he hadn't lost all this time getting here, to this realization, getting to her, but this regret faded in respect of the knowledge – this crazy, irrational consciousness deep inside him—that he had so much time ahead of him, that they had it all ahead of them.

All his life, he realized, he'd been running—running away from what he had, running towards some ill-defined, fascinating place he didn't quite understand and probably did not even exist. He wasn't running now, he was simply traveling, and the destination almost didn't matter as long as Bella was right there, by his side.

o o o

They stopped for lunch in a quiet, relaxed diner by the river.

"Was she beautiful?" Bella asked after their food was eaten, leaning against the large window just over their table.

"Who do you mean?" Jasper answered, his brow furrowed against the unexpected turn of the conversation.

"You know… Maria." Bella blushed and looked away.

Jasper startled, fidgeting with his napking, unsure how to respond. He noticed that Bella was blushing, biting her lip nervously, and it occurred to him he had never seen her so insecure before. He hated the thoguht that his past might be hurting her right now.

The truth, he tells himself. Always the truth, no dark spots, no shadows.

"Yes," he said finally, and then paused for a long time. "Yes she was. But she was… I want you to understand… her beauty was a sham."

"It's okay, you don't have to…" Bella tried to interject, but Jasper took her hand and held it still.

"No, let me. I don't want you to think about this... I don't want her to be on your mind, ever. She's in the past." He swallowed hard before he continued, relieved when Bella's eyes came back to his, however fleetingly. "She's nothing to do with you. Compared to you… she's nothing, nobody."

"She made you who you are," she argued, her voice soft, hesitant.

Jasper's felt a stab of pain hit him as the truth of those words, ugly as it was, sank in.

"Don't say that," he protested.

"She brought you to Forks… to me." Bella's voice was little more than a whisper, low and and throaty, impossibly sweet.

"Bella," Jasper whispered, his words urgent. "You… you see who I am… you make me free to be who I am. You. No one else."

They were silent for a while, Bella's gaze still escaping his, her hand in his small and limp, as if afraid to hold on to him

"Bella?" Jasper said gently, lacing his fingers through hers. Concern made his voice softer than usual. "What is it?"

She looked at him briefly, a shy smile on her lips. She, who usually found it so natural to speak the truth, to address everything head-on, felt strangely overwhelmed by this new, alien emotion that came over her—a jealousy so profound it made her self-confidence shake and threatened to obfuscate her newly found joy.

"It's nothing," she said, "don't worry."

Jasper swallowed and brought his other hand to cover hers, leaning across the table so that his forehead almost touched hers. Bella didn't pull back, her body welcoming his touch, his now familiar and essential warmth.

"I'm not worried," he lied, "but I don't want you to be, either."

Bella took a deep breath and looked up to him.

"I am so," she paused, gathering her courage to say the word that was taking up so much space in her chest, "inexperienced. How can I be enough for you?"

"Bella," his voice cracked on her name, "it's the opposite. If I could undo that part of my life… erase it… I would. Those experiences, if I could take them all back, I would. Trust me. You are… you are more than enough. "

He leaned even closer, till his mouth was at her ear and his hand in her hair.

"Being with you," he paused so there would be no doubt on what he meant, "was the sweetest," he kissed her earlobe gently, "sexiest," he ran his teeth on it, not hard enough to bite but enough to feel her shiver, "most beautiful moment of my life."

He pulled back just enough so he could look at her, checking that her eyes were again clear, trusting, open.

"Of my life so far," he clarified, and smiled, waiting for her to do the same, waiting for her neck to relax into his hold, for her body and her face to tell him that she was okay, that they were okay.

They left the restaurant close together, his arm over her shoulder, holding her tight, hers around his waist and her face half hidden in his chest. The clouds had cleared and the sun reflected on the rain puddles in the street, making everything look new and shiny. They walked slowly along the river, alone but for the occasional dog walker.

They stopped after a while and Jasper leaned against the railing, pulling Bella to him so she was standing between his legs.

Standing up, she was just a bit taller than him and she relished his upturned face, his eyes closed against her touch, his lips soft against her kisses. He was so handsome, so perfect, and she wondered whether it felt like this for everybody—first love, or lust, or whatever  _ this _ was; and she thought it impossible that anyone else could have ever felt anything so strong, so pure.

Surely she was the first and only person ever to  _ feel _ so much.

Jasper let himself be caressed and learned, he let her trace the contours of his jaw, the scar on his left eyebrow, the curve of his nose. Surrounded by her hair, her scent, her hands and mouth, he felt cherished, wanted, adored.

His hearth felt as open as the sky.

o o o

It was dark by the time they reached the quiet, deserted campus. Classes weren't due to start for another few days, but Bella had opted to arrive as early as the dorms rules would allow in order to get settled and learn the lay of the land, conscious that everyone else had a whole semester's head start on her.

Jasper went with her to pick up the keys, helped her with her bags and stood two feet behind her as she took in the surroundings of her assigned room—giving her time to assess and accept that this would be her home, at least for the immediate feature.

He remembered the mix of excitement and trepidation it had been him standing in her shoes, and it hit him all over again how young she really was. Her earlier insecurities became his for a while, a sudden fear he was warping her somehow, stealing something from her.

"I'll go get us something to eat while you settle in," he said, and took his time walking across the quiet, tree-lined streets, his hands deep in his pockets against the cold, his shoulders tense from the day's driving, the imminent separation, the lingering and unwelcome doubt Bella was just an interlude, not the sure, lasting path he'd come to believe she was.

Vulnerability washed over him in waves and he tried, at first, to resist it, to shut it out; almost angry that it had found him just when he thought he was safe, just when he'd felt himself strong and ready to embrace life. But as he kept on walking, he surrendered and let it sink in, slowly, hesitantly at first, then, as he tasted its bittersweet appeal, more wholly.

A new acceptance enveloped his heart, the knowledge that nothing valuable comes without fear, that nothing worth having is safe from being lost, and that certainty is not the absence of doubt but the confidence to ignore it.

o o o

Back in the dorms, he found Bella sitting on the newly made narrow bed by the wall, the green sheets and dark blue comforter bringing the room alive, a small table lamp casting soft shadows over the walls.

"This is all I could find," he said, placing the pizza carton on the desk.

She smiled, not getting up.

"And this," he continued, taking a bottle of wine out of a brown paper bag. "Tonight deserves a toast, plus you won't get a chance to buy it legally anytime soon."

Bella smiled at his joke and he felt strangely reassured to be able to make light of her age, to tease her about it—to bring his earlier fear into the light, into the fabric of their relationship.

"Are you okay?," he asked, leaning down to kiss her and smooth her hair.

"Yes," she answered simply. "Just tired. Hungry."

They ate sitting cross-legged on her bed, facing each other, straight from the cartons. The food and wine and the strange, informal intimacy of their setting made them quiet and warm, smiles taking the place of words, laughter bubbling up without the need for jokes, simply because it was all so new, and they were alone, for the first time, far from everything and everyone—somewhere between their past and their future.

o o o

"Take this off," he said after they had finished, after the food remains had been cleared from the bed and she had come closer to him, on her knees, facing him with burning eyes and flushed cheeks.

He ran his finger under the edge of her sweater, his finger pads barely brushing her skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps behind them. He had never known goosebumps could excite him so much.

"Let me see you," he continued, his voice strangled, so low and breathless as to be barely recognizable.

She shivered visibly, the strength of her physical reaction forcing a whimper through her lips that made Jasper hard and bold.

Bella's heart beat wildly as she reached for the hem of her top, pulling away from him to lift it over her head. He didn't let go of her, holding her waist with hands that were almost too firm, keeping her still, grounded, preventing her from moving away from him.

He relished the soft, supple flesh of her belly, the firm, untouched quality of her skin.

She sought to avoid his eyes, overwhelmed by the intensity of what she was feeling, but the pull of him, the need to see him was too strong. His eyes in hers were feverish, his pupils black. What Bella saw in them was want, hunger, an almost blind need to possess her. A hint of fear spiked her desire and made it toxic in the most delicious way.

She pulled her top off and stood in front of him, vulnerable and open in her white bra, her small breasts straining against the thin cotton. Her skin was flushed pink, her breath heavy and shaky, her mind drunk with the audacity of the moment.

Jasper raised one hand, slowly, and placed it on Bella's chest—his fingers brushing her collarbone, barely grazing the top of her breasts. Her skin felt burning under his hands.

"You're so beautiful," he said, in a strangled voice, and he took his time pulling her bra straps down, unhooking the clasp, letting his hands travel slowly and teasingly, finding her pale, small nipples and letting them harden under his touch; stroking them again and again until Bella's eyes rolled back and her body rocked forward to find his

"Stop," she whispered.

"Too much?," he asked, all of his will concentrated in waiting for her response, in holding back.

She shook her head, arousal making her confused, bold, crazy.

"Don't stop, don't stop," she begged as she pressed her body more firmly on his.

His mouth replaced his fingers on her breasts, his hands were at her waist, pushing her pants down, desperate for warmth, for wetness, for her.

Bella pulled away and he thought she once again felt overwhelmed, but instead she just stood up and peeled her pants and underwear off in one sure, fluid movement. She climbed back on the bed and kneeled in front of him, naked and breathless.

"Oh God," he whispered, his hands suddenly frozen, incapable of movement. "Oh my God, Bella. You make me crazy."

She smiled and Jasper knew then that she knew, she knew what power she had over him. Her confidence, her innate sensuality, unrelated to experience or knowledge, instinctive, free, was only for him, binding him to her, driving him mad with a thirst that only she could quench.

"You, too," she said, her voice hoarse, and he realized he was still fully clothed. Without waiting, he peeled away his thermal, his t-shirt, opened his belt buckle under her focused gaze, pulled down his jeans and boxer-shorts to reveal his hard, fully erect cock. Her eyes widened when she saw it, and he thought it strange and exhilarating that though he had been in her, she had yet to really look at him.

He took her hand and brought it to his cock, closing her fingers around it, showing her how to touch him; she stilled for a moment, then grew bolder and started stroking, gently at first, then with firmer movements. She looked at him as she did, looked at what she was doing to him, at how her hands made his eyes dark and heavy, filled with something she understood only too well—want and lust and something more, something magical that turned the edges of reality into live electricity, that made her want to lose herself.

Emboldened, she leaned down to kiss it, and Jasper's hiss, the spontaneous thrust of his hips against her lips, the new, delicious feel of his hard cock against her soft mouth, the evidence of her power over him made her feel like a goddess, like nothing could stop her.

She opened her mouth to take him in and there was nothing tentative, nothing hesitant about her eagerness.

"Bella," Jasper whispered, pleaded, his hands in her hair despite his will.

He let her take charge, let her claim her power over him, let her prove how fearless her desire for him was. He closed his eyes, all feeling lost to him except for her wet, warm mouth claiming his surrender. His whole body shook with the effort of staying focused, of staying still, when every single fiber of his being was screaming to let go and give in to the overwhelming need to lose control.

"Bella," he repeated, more forcefully, wanting more from tonight, more from her. She stopped and looked up at him, and he pulled her up, pulled her mouth to his, his bitter taste on her tongue making him wild.

He kissed her hungrily, feverishly, holding her too tight, running his hands everywhere he found skin, getting her as close to him as he could. He lay back and pulled her down with him, frantic now, desperate to bury himself into her.

"I want you," he said, words that sounded distant and raucous, the voice of another man.

She sat up, and placed her hands on his chest as she lowered herself over him. He entered her agonisingly slowly, feeling her stretch around him, her heat searing and almost impossibly tight.

"Is this okay?" he asked, and she nodded, smiling, and let herself sink all the way, her mouth opened against the onslaught of sensation.

She set the tempo, moving over him in fluid, languid movements. Somewhere at the back of his mind a rational thought crept up, an awed appreciation of her beauty, of her elegance, of the perfect contours of her body and the sensuality of her nude form. But it was foggy, lost immediately, his cock the center of the universe, Bella's tight cunt the meaning of life, her breasts in his hands the promise of bliss.

No thoughts, no feelings, just bodies and sweat and primal, inarticulate sounds and blackness that closed in almost painfully on his consciousness, the pursuit of a pleasure that could obliterate reality.

_ I'm at your mercy _ , he almost said.  _ Take me _ .

He felt her tighten around him and at the same time she whispered his name, a guttural sound that came straight from the deepest, warmest, wettest part of her.

"Jasper," she breathed as she threw her head back and stilled.

His orgasm hit him hard, and it seemed to him it went on for hours, falling, falling into her and drowning into ecstasy.

o o o

Afterwards, they lay side by side in her narrow bed, their bodies warm and sticky next to each other, their legs entwined, their hands roaming on each other's hair, shoulders, hands.

They smiled and shared light, languorous kisses, their eyes sometimes fixed on each other's, sometimes shut against the bliss and the exhaustion.

They were silent, beautifully, perfectly quiet for a long time—memorizing every feature, every scar, every scent of their bodies; committing the rhythm of their breathing and their heartbeats to the depths of their subconscious.

Bella's voice, soft and low, broke the spell.

"What are we?" she asked, her face serious as it always was whenever she was asking something meaningful, something important.

"What do you mean?" he evaded, knowing full well, but still incapable of the same instinctive honesty that came so easily to Bella.

"You know," she repeated, her tone more insistent now. "What are you? To me?"

Jasper surprised himself with the words that rushed to his mouth, unbidden, crystal clear, yet so true, so perfect.

"I'm your lover. That's what I am to you. Because that's what I do. I love you."

Bella's eyes widened, stunned and almost panicked at the intensity of his words. She stilled, her hand suddenly frozen on his cheek, and he worried it had been too much, too soon, too scary.

"You do?" she asked after a long moment, the words barely above a whisper.

"Yes," he answered simply. "I do."

He put a finger on her lips, gently sealing them shut, giving her permission to just hear the words without speaking them back, or perhaps protecting himself against her questions, her protests, her withdrawal.

Instead, he felt her lips curl and saw her eyes soften in a dreamy, adoring smile. She kissed his hand and brought it to her face, holding it tight, then moved her body closer to his, seeking more contact, more warmth, more connection.

He instinctively welcomed her, raising his leg to draw hers in, feeling her center against his, her softness against his hardness, her breasts teasing his chest, her whole being shivering for him.

_For him._

She pulled his face close to her, then whispered in his ear.

"Me too," words so feathery and so soft he thought he'd dreamed them, "I'll be your lover, too."

  
  



	20. Epilogue

_Bella_

I wake up and everything is golden.

Early morning sunshine streams in through the open window, the cool breeze bringing goosebumps to my arms.

I hear the sound of the waves calling, calling me to the ocean and a delicious anticipation makes my legs tingle and stretch.

I turn around and lean into tan skin, breathe in the smell of sleep, of a late night, of a long week in court. Underneath it all, the scent of him, secret and precious; mine only.

I flatten my body against his, run my hands over his muscular shoulders, my fingers tracing the freckles on his back.

His breathing changes slightly, his body acknowledging me even as he can't rouse himself from slumber; he turns his head towards me, his eyes fluttering but staying resolutely closed.

"I'm going for a swim," I whisper in his ear, then kiss his jaw lightly, the stubble rough again my lips. His mouth moves imperceptibly, perhaps he's trying to speak, or maybe just smile. Still, he doesn't wake.

"I love you," I say against his neck, and all I get in response is a shiver. His body knows what his mind cannot fully process.

I get out of bed silently. On my way to the bathroom I run my hand over the light blue silk tie he wore yesterday—my favorite—now lying discarded on a chair next to his crumpled white shirt.

I look back at him, long legs tangled in the white bedsheets, and for a moment I am drawn back to the bed, his naked body calling to me like always: like the first time, when I didn't even know what want was, and I already wanted him; like yesterday, when he climbed into bed at one a.m., laughing and kissing and waking me up with his hard, hard want that couldn't wait; like every day in between, because when it comes to him, I can't not want, I can't not take.

But the pull of the ocean this morning is too strong, and it is a need I can't, won't ignore.

Outside, the air is fragrant with early summer promise, the concrete still cool under my flip-flops as I walk the three blocks to the beach.

I breathe in deeply and hit the water.

o o o

_Jasper_

The stillness wakes me up. The absence of her, the empty bed, and a faint memory of her body on mine, of her lips on my face, of words barely whispered in my ear and against my skin.

My head hurts and my eyes are heavy with exhaustion; I hug her pillow, seeking sleep, trying to lull myself back into the rest my body so desperately craves.

But I crave her more. I want every moment of this day to be for her, every second of this Saturday to be with her.

Images flash behind my eyes, reminding me how I sank into her last night, buried myself in her scent and her warmth, held her and made love to her clumsily, pure need, pure instinct, no words, barely awake. Our bodies found their rhythm, like they always do, our peace. It is enough to make me ache for her all over again.

I let the shower revive me, cursing the drinks I let the guys talk me into, but how to say no, how to live down the adrenaline, how to walk away. I never knew it could be possible to put so much heart and passion and energy into work. I never thought I could love my job.

They say, the older guys, that it's because I'm young and idealistic; that I still believe in the "system", in making a difference.

They don't know that I have never felt young and that I've never been an idealist.

They say the shit will start to stick, sooner or later, that I'll long for soulless, greedy corporate work, for the shiny downtown offices and the multiple-zeros pay checks. They say I won't last.

Maybe.

Their words wash away without leaving a trace. Whatever it is, whatever the future holds— the present feels so right. I am where I need to be.

o o o

_Bella_

I swim for a long time, slowly, stroke after stroke into the open sea.

This thing I've come to love and long for, open water swimming, is not about speed, nothing to do with competition. Instead, it's about focus, resistance, being aware of your surroundings and your body at all times.

This is pure pleasure, a joy that is only mine.

Swimming, which only a few years ago felt like a prison sentence, then like a prize painfully denied, is where I've found my freedom.

o o o

_Jasper_

I grab two large coffees at the corner deli and head to the beach.

I spot her towel and I sit down on the sand, scouting the water for her yellow cap, a hint of tension like every time I know she's out there, a knot of apprehension that dissolves the moment I catch sight of her. I relax instantly and allow myself the luxury of watching her swim. She's strong and steady, powerful and unhurried. Everything about her, even from a distance, tells of her unique, quiet grace, of the way she fits seamlessly into her reality, comfortable in her skin, open to the world.

I hadn't counted on that, on her steering me, grounding me. In Forks, I had mistaken her quiet beauty for shyness, her self-containment for hesitation; and I had thought, at first, it had been just her youth, her freshness, the pure, open heart she offered so generously that had bound me to her so quickly and so fast.

I had thought that wouldn't last, that the spell would fade in time.

I know differently now. Bella is a rock, strong, resilient, capable of a confidence that keeps her and those around her from floundering.

She's my center of gravity.

It took one, searing moment to make me see the truth I'd only intuited.

It was a moment that could have undone me, brought me to my knees, unhinged me. It was Maria, appearing out of nowhere in a busy downtown restaurant, too far to see me, close enough to fill me with an almost blind rage, a thirst for answers, a dark, forgotten desire. A few seconds that lasted an eternity, and I was sure I was lost.

Then her hand in mine, a sudden contact, warm and strong. And her lips, brushing gently across my ear, whispering in the noisy room.

"Jasper… come back."

I jolted. Did she know? How could she? I turned to look at her and she smiled.

"Are you okay?"

She brushed her hand gently across my chest, bringing her body flush with mine as she did. Everything else was forgotten. Nothing else mattered. A peace so complete as to be almost mystical descended upon me

I buried my hands in her hair and kissed her deeply, not caring for our surroundings, ignoring the crowd. I dragged her out of the restaurant without looking back, not bothering to check whether my vision had been real or imagined.

"Move here. Come live with me," I begged her when we got to my place. "This is not enough anymore. Weekends, visits, phone calls... not enough." I undressed her roughly, roamed her body with feverish hands. "I can't be without you. I need you. I love you."

o o o

_Bella_

Could this be it?

I wonder this often, so I am not surprised when the thought finds me.

My body moves to the beat of a well-practiced rhythm, stroke after stroke, breath after breath, and my mind finds the familiar place of questioning, a disbelief tinted with fear: can this, really, be it?

Most people spend their whole life looking for love, and many never even find it. Every single book and song and painting tells me that love hurts, that it betrays, that it's so easily lost. My family came apart because my parents couldn't keep it alive.

And yet... falling in love with Jasper was as natural as sliding into the cool, crystalline waters of an unspoilt lake. He was there all along, the love for him a bud nestled deep inside me just waiting to blossom. He touched me, he looked at me, he smiled and I came alive. I opened my heart to him and he filled it perfectly, like it was always meant to be his.

Can it really be this easy? Can we be the ones to prove everyone else, everything else wrong? Can we be the ones? And if not us, who?

o o o

_Jasper_

She's swimming back to shore now. Every stroke brings her closer to me, and I anticipate the moment she'll step out of the water and see me. I love that moment most of all, and I don't know whether it's because it's such a cliche- the beautiful nymph, the Bond-girl pose- or whether it's something more fundamental, more primal: a desire to claim her, a profound jealousy for this other great love of hers, the ocean, this need she has to swim away from me almost every day.

o o o

_Bella_

I see him almost immediately. He's sitting halfway up the beach, his arms resting lazily on his knees, his hair wild and ruffled by the wind. His mouth lifts in a half smile and he grabs the towel and waves it at me. Then he opens it in front of him in an inviting gesture, calling me to sink into it, and I walk fast towards him, almost running.

I lean down to kiss his lips, raining salt water all over him. He laughs and captures me in the towel, wrapping me up tight and pulling me me down to sit between his legs.

"Hello," he whispers in my wet hair. His voice is rough, scratchy with lack of use. Today's first words are for me.

"Hey," I answer back and turn my head to kiss him again. "Where's that coffee I taste?"

He raises a large paper cup and I grab it eagerly, even though it's almost completely cold by now.

"Nice swim?," he asks, and he squeezes me a bit tighter.

"The best," I answer, and I relax against his chest.

We stay like this, in silence, his arms around me and his chin on my shoulder. The sun is much stronger now, and I close my eyes, letting the warmth and the sounds of the waves lull me into a state of deep relaxation.

"Are you ready to go home?," he asks after a while, a minute or twenty, I cannot tell.

I nod. I stand up and extend my hand towards him, pulling him up; he stumbles to his feet, and I tease him for still being drunk. He smiles lazily, not bothering with a retort, and pulls me into a hug that almost lifts me off the ground.

I laugh, and he kisses me so hard it almost takes my breath away.

We walk home hand in hand and I think... I think this is it.

  
  



End file.
